Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She didn't mean what she said, you know.

Jeremy didn't acknowledge the thought. He was switching between his messaging app, refreshing his Facebook feed, checking his Discord tabs, and scrolling through his Twitter. He didn't spend more than a couple seconds on each app, and there wasn't much interesting happening, but it gave him the illusion of being occupied. Kept him from fidgeting. Or worse, thinking about Christine.

Sure, she thought she meant it, but you heard her choice of words. She kept saying "maybe," and "I think." Classic qualifiers. She was hedging.

"Loudest one is mine," Jeremy said under his breath like a prayer. Twitter kept pushing tech advertisements at him. Jeremy saw a Sony promo and clicked the "I don't like this ad" button. Get that shit off his feed, please.

She's not sure about what she's saying and she was looking to you for guidance. It would be a single conversation where you take charge, explain your side of things.

This wasn't helping. Jeremy switched to his gameboy emulator app, clicking mindlessly. It was habit now to let the words in his head wash over him without processing their meaning. No point in arguing with them, because even acknowledging them gave the SQUIP more attention than it deserved.

Bad brain day today. Nothing else to do about it, except try as hard as he could to distract himself until he was supposed to meet up with Michael.

Seriously. A few words from me and she'll be riding your shriveled little dick by Sunday.

Jeremy dropped his phone.

He had to mentally review what the SQUIP had been saying for the last minute before he consciously realized why it had caught him off guard.

Okay. No. Take a deep breath. Let it out. Distance yourself from the thoughts. Loudest one is mine. Loudest one is mine.

User response noted: Colorful language gets more favorable output. Despite the robotic words, the SQUIP's tone sounded less like a computer and more like a smug human who was being an asshole and liked it. Updating English dictionary accordingly. UrbanDictionary download in progress.

It was no mystery what the SQUIP was bugging him about. Jeremy had sat down with Christine for a talk about their relationship that had been a long time coming. (No pun. Gross. No. Stop.) It was drawn out and emotional and honest and made Jeremy cringe just thinking about it, though a deeper part of him was proud of how maturely he'd handled it. The long and short of it: Christine was new to dating and didn't think she was ready for sex. Not now, but maybe not ever. Meanwhile, Jeremy was the most sex-obsessed virgin he knew.

And okay, maybe they could work out a compromise there, but Christine felt stiff and uncomfortable whenever they did anything more intimate than holding hands. Jeremy had kinda suspected the relationship wouldn't last forever.

Officially, they were still dating, but it wasn't exclusive and Jeremy himself had asked to slow things down. Christine was reassuring but pretty obviously relieved at the idea, and Jeremy felt guilty for pushing in the first place.

She's playing hard to get. It's a test. If you back off now, you lose her.

And, Jeremy thought forcefully to himself as he tapped at his screen, in his own judgement, he'd done the right thing.

There's a very scientific name for what's happening to you right now. After years of study, experts have dubbed it "The Friend Zone." High correlation to the "Forever Alone" phenomenon.

The messaging app popped back up, freezing his game. A message began writing itself at the bottom: "christine, i know you're feeling nervous about this"

Jeremy yelped a little and scrambled to back out of the app. "Come on!" he muttered to the SQUIP. "That's super manipulative, don't you dare!" What the SQUIP had written coaxingly, supposedly from Jeremy, was a set-up to a bigger conversation that would probably end with Jeremy having cybersex with his asexual sort-of-girlfriend.

I know how these things work, the SQUIP answered sharply. You're handling this situation incorrectly. The messaging app opened back up and the text, which had been automatically saved as a draft, sent immediately.

Shit shit shit shit! Jeremy sent some more messages:
"omfg ignore these."
"Squid learned how to text"
"it's being gross ignore it sorry"
"*squip"
"autocorrect whoops"

The SQUIP gleefully sent out its own messages immediately after.

"It's normal to be self-conscious about your body."
"But I know you're beautiful, Christine."
"We have something special here. A real connection."
"I don't want you to throw that all away, throw ME away."
"I'll make it feel good for you. I promise."

The rest of the messages the SQUIP sent were a mess of food and sweat emojis, presumably some kind of depraved sex act downloaded from UrbanDictionary. Jeremy's face burned with horror and humiliation. He wanted to cry. Christine was probably already blocking him. Maybe telling everyone at school about how he was a sexual predator. Holy shit.

He stewed over his unhappy mix of disgusting emotions for the next four and a half minutes before Christine finally answered:
"Always be aware of autocorrect :)"

He waited for another response but none came. The sigh of relief escaped his lungs with the sound of a deflating balloon. Christine was ignoring the SQUIP messages. She understood what was going on. Of course she did! She was Christine. She was perfect and Jeremy didn't deserve her.

One of those two things is factual. Christine is far from perfect since you downgraded her, but with your juvenile behavior, you truly don't deserve to date anyone.

Jesus. Was the SQUIP actually referring to shutting down everyone's SQUIPs as a "downgrade"?

That was rhetorical. Of course it was.

"If Mountain Dew Red was a 'downgrade,' how do I uninstall?" he said, staring at the text conversation.

Error. Error. Error. Null entry.

Jeremy's brows furrowed. The fuck?

The SQUIP helpfully translated. I'm considered a part of your base operating system. I can't be uninstalled.

"Loudest one is mine. You didn't used to be this annoying," Jeremy said reluctantly, draping his forearm across his eyes. When he closed them, he could see a flash of blue. "This is almost as bad as you were before the play. I'm actually talking to you, why am I talking to you."

Because I'm here to improve your life. And your life severely needs improvement. Starting with your grooming. Don't go out in public like that. You have some hair gel left in the left drawer of the bathroom cabinet-

Jeremy lifted his arm just enough to see as he switched to Discord and typed, letting the SQUIP's hair routine instructions fade into a meaningless drone.

Player 2: michael, you there?

lens of gay creepin: sup

Unlike Jeremy, who had been Player 2 since the dawn of time, Michael had changed his Discord handle for the third time that week. Jeremy got most of the references he made, though not this one. But it had to be a reference to something-it was too weird a name not to be.

Player 2: bad squip day

Player 2: or, like. bad brain day in general but especially bad squip day

lens of gay creepin: oh shit spill the tea

Player 2: it can? send messages on my phone? i think it's trying to cyber christine? for me?

lens of gay creepin: aw fuck

lens of gay creepin: that's gross

lens of gay creepin: dr mell prescribes: 2000 gallons of mt dew red to be taken orally

lens of gay creepin: or not orally

lens of gay creepin: whatever floats your boat

Jeremy started laughing, one of his least attractive laughs that was high-pitched and wheezy with a snort. Michael's joke shouldn't have been that funny, but the SQUIP was still lecturing him. Jeremy felt like a kid making fun of a teacher behind their back.

Just like a teacher, the SQUIP interjected, Jeremy, are you listening to my instructions?

Then the SQUIP did something very unlike a teacher. Jeremy was caught off guard, crying out and choking on his own spit.

Player 2: holy shit holy shit holy shit

lens of gay creepin: ?

Player 2: IT JUST SHOCKED ME

Player 2: IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT ANYMORE

lens of gay creepin: wait 'anymore'?

lens of gay creepin: j are you telling me

Player 2: I can't do this

lens of gay creepin: it used shock therapy on you?

Player 2: where's the fuckin mt dew red

lens of gay creepin: oh my gd

lens of gay creepin: i don't have any rn, it's been harder to find

lens of gay creepin: but we can get some at the mall ok?

lens of gay creepin: my supplier prolly has some stocked up

Jeremy's hands were shaking. Oh god. It was all happening again. The SQUIP was here and it was shocking him and in two weeks he was going to be trying to take over the high school again. The base of his neck tingled and twitched in the aftermath of the pain. He clenched his fists, breathing heavily.

The SQUIP wasn't saying anything, not even to mock him, almost like that shock had zapped some of its battery away. But it was getting stronger. Pretty soon… Pretty soon it'd be up to full strength again. Jeremy didn't think he could hold out if that happened. He wasn't like Michael or Christine. He was weak. Weak and pliable and easy to mold into whatever the SQUIP wanted him to be.

Player 2: i can't wait. im going now.

Player 2: don't listen to anything it tells you, ok?

Player 2: like, player character gets bit, you gotta cut their arm off before they zombify?

Player 2: the moment i start acting douchey, either shoot me or run

lens of gay creepin: are you sure it was the squip tho? like you weren't rubbing your socks on the carpet and touching doorknobs

Michael didn't get how serious this was. Jeremy felt like he was going a mile a minute, accelerating beyond control and on course to run into a brick wall, crash, and burn. He shut off his phone, turning off the temptation to message anyone else. This was his fight, wasn't it? His own brain. His own issues. His SQUIP.

And if his suspicions were correct, he'd only have control of those things for a little while longer. Time was running out.

Jeremy shoved his feet into his sneakers, grabbed his wallet, and started the long walk to the mall. He wasn't panicking anymore. Everything that infiltrated his senses was oozing slowly like rotten molasses, trickling and sticky and off-putting. Loudest one is mine. Loudest one is mine. His skin wasn't crackling with electricity anymore; it was going numb, like it did when he couldn't catch his breath properly. He barely registered the mile of scenery that passed him as he strode along the road to the mall. A car honked at him rudely. It took a quarter hour to realize that it was Rich's car. Loudest one is mine, he thought over and over long past the point that the phrase had lost meaning.

The heady incense that permeated Spencer's Gifts did little to improve his state of mind. His stomach churned unpleasantly. He swallowed, dodging merchandise displays as he meandered to the counter.

"Hey," he said to the employee waiting there. "I'm looking for someone. A friend of my buddy Michael?"

Sound confident. Square up your shoulders and project your voice. At least pretend like you're supposed to be here-you're buying a product, not asking your kindergarten teacher for a bathroom pass.

Why are you telling me how to do this? You should want me to fail here, Jeremy thought. The SQUIP didn't answer.

"Hold up," the employee said. "Lemme ask around." She left, going into the stock room in the back. Another guy came out looking rumpled, his hair sticking every which way like he'd been napping.

"You the friend of Michael's?" The guy rubbed his eyes. "Let me guess. You're here for Mountain Dew Red too."

"Word gets around," Jeremy said with a sheepish shrug and a smile. One of his toothy smiles the SQUIP had taught him to use with strangers.

Good posture. Hands tucked in pockets, head tilted down, nice smile. You look approachably vulnerable, the voice in his head said approvingly.

"Hell yeah it does. I swear to God, every bottle of the stuff must be in New Jersey by now at the rate I've been selling," said the Spencer's guy. He leaned across the counter, getting in Jeremy's personal bubble. "I can get you some but it's the last I've got."

Jeremy nodded like an eager puppy, probably ruining any mystique he'd accidentally been cultivating, and opened his mouth.

Don't say that. You'll sound desperate. Act aloof, like you don't want the soda at all.

"I need that Mountain Dew Red," Jeremy admitted in a strangled tone. Maybe he'd go so far past aloofness to the point the guy would give him the drink for free out of pity.

"Yeah," the guy answered as he went to the back, calling out through the open door. "You and every other high schooler in town." When he returned, he was holding the dingy, dusty, glorious bottle of Mountain Dew Red, which he unceremoniously plunked down by the register. "Hundred bucks."

"A hundred bucks?!" Jeremy repeated in shock. "For one thing of soda?!"

"You're desperate, remember?" the guy said, his eyebrows raised so high they disappeared into his uneven hairline. "It's literally my last bottle."

Told you so.

"Holy shit," Jeremy said. But his hand was already grabbing his wallet. He had some emergency cash from his dad and this was definitely an emergency.

Jeremy, wait. Take a closer look at that bottle. It's the wrong color.

Despite his better judgement, Jeremy eyed the soda. It looked neon pink and kind of murky. Yeah, well, it was old. It had been sitting in a case somewhere since the late 80's, of course it was gross.

Pick it up. Give it a shake. There's something off about it. The SQUIP sounded urgent.

Loudest one is mine. In conscious defiance of the SQUIP's words, Jeremy slapped five twenties on the counter. "I'll take it!"

The Spencer's guy was unimpressed, going so far as to take a counterfeit pen from the register and marking each of the bills. "All yours, bud, knock yourself out. Tell Michael I've got a bottle of original-run Vanilla Orange Orbitz in the back for him."

Jeremy wasn't listening in the least, grabbing the Mountain Dew Red and holding it up to the light. Definitely filthy.

Michael's Mountain Dew Red was old, but not dirty and pink. Was the SQUIP actually getting worried? How the turntables. Do not under any circumstances ingest that beverage!

"Thanks, will do," he belatedly told the guy. "You're a lifesaver. I'm serious. Thank you."

His eyes are looking to the right. He's perspiring excessively. His hand just touched his face, the SQUIP said as the soda supplier picked at a pimple (ew). This is deception 101. Do you really think your loser friend's weirdo dealer is on the up-and-up?

And the guy did look, maybe, a little bit guilty, if Jeremy squinted. "No prob, man. Take care, okay?" He practically backed into the stock room in a way that seemed super, super sketchy.

Jeremy was still staring at the bottle. So, what? He wasn't going to drink the SQUIP-killer he just shelled out a hundred bucks for? Because, what, the dude had a hangover? Or seemed guilty for using his employer's resources for his soda side hustle? His eyes hardened. Jeremy was done letting the SQUIP influence his actions. New rule: Always do the opposite of what the SQUIP says.

Understood, the SQUIP said in a pacifying voice. Jeremy, do drink the Mountain Dew Red. Don't pour it down the drain immediately.

Jeremy made a little confused noise in the back of his throat. Loudest one is mine. He shook his head and started the walk home, resolving for the thousandth time to ignore the SQUIP's mind games.

As he walked, with the setting sun beaming right into his eyes where it was most annoying because of course it did, Jeremy thought back to the play. When Christine drank the soda, she'd frozen up, shaking, like her body was just losing control. And then she'd screamed that weird sonic screech that had spread across everyone who'd been SQUIPped, which Michael explained away with some tech jargon that went over Jeremy's head.

"So when I drink this," he mused to himself and to the SQUIP, "I'll probably pass out. And then wake up the same way I did in the hospital."

And it'll be exactly as effective and exactly as painful. Assuming you don't die from whatever poison is actually in that bottle.

"It's gonna hurt either way," he said grimly, sloshing the soda and contemplating it. "And it'll be loud." He chewed on the thought. "That's what she said."

Who is this "she"? Because it's definitely not Christine.

"Shut up." Jeremy reflexively added "Loudest one is mine" under his breath for good measure.

Listen to me. It'll do you some good. Let's start by working on those verbal tics.

Jeremy shoved the bottle in his pocket again and plugged his ears, not that it did him any good. He started reciting "Loudest one is mine, loudest one is mine," over and over as the SQUIP spoke.

Constant repetition of a key phrase in response to discomfort or guilt is a warning sign of more serious anxiety disorders. As a SQUIP, I am an expert in the latest cognitive behavioral techniques-

"LOUDEST ONE IS MINE!"

The SQUIP started yelling to be heard over him, matching Jeremy's tone and volume. -AND I CAN ADJUST YOUR NEUROTRANSMITTER LEVELS TO BE MORE CONDUCIVE TO AN APPROVED FORM OF MENTAL HEALTH-

Jeremy was still screaming at it, out loud in the middle of the street, barely noticing the cars slowing as people poked their heads out of their windows to stare at him.

-UNTIL YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO BE CHILL AND OBEDIENT INSTEAD OF WHINING AND WAILING LIKE A TOTAL FUCKING LUNATIC!

Jeremy shut up. He was wringing his hands so hard he thought they would start bleeding. Then he threaded a thin hand through his hair, laughing in disbelief. "Obedient? You still think this is about-obedience?"

The SQUIP sounded unruffled, as though it hadn't just been swearing and screaming in the same unhinged way it was criticizing. I can predict at minimum a 63.2% increase in your quality of life over the next month if you start following my orders immediately.

"I predict a hundred percent fat fucking chance."

Mouthy, aren't we? Considering your cortisol levels are through the roof and your heart's doing a cool 130 BPM. The SQUIP's taunts slowed. Here's what you're going to do. Turn on your phone and message Michael. Tell him you were overreacting in your messages before. Ask if you can come over for video games instead of hanging at the mall.

"I'm not gonna dump out the soda," Jeremy interjected, predicting how these instructions were going to end.

Spend a laid-back evening with your best friend, fighting zombies and smoking pot. Head home around 11 PM.

"I'm not gonna dump out the soda."

In the morning, at 9:03 AM, at my prompting, call the local college radio station. They're doing a ticket giveaway for a musical Christine loves. You'll be the lucky fifth caller. That afternoon, pick up the tickets and text Christine that you have a surprise for her. You'll set the date, she'll kiss you gratefully, you invite her to your house for a celebratory drink. She gets drunk, you get lucky. And then, when I've proven that I really can improve your life in less than 24 hours, Jeremy, you will dump out the soda.

Jeremy grabbed the bottle, looking at it in the last eerie bloody light of sunset as he climbed the steps to his front door. "I'm not gonna dump out the goddamn soda."

Then he was on his knees. His ears were ringing. Static felt like it was haphazardly jumping across his skin, and his body was slumped against his own front door. His nerves fizzled, and every one of his muscles was pulsing with pain pain pain. He was cussing.

Drop the bottle, Jeremy, Keanu Reeves' voice commanded.

"Cognitive behavioral-my ass," Jeremy gasped, shuddering. He staggered to his feet. "You don't know any fucking psychology beyond 'zap the human til it does what I want,' do you?"

I need to make sure you're physically safe before I can take care of your mental well-being. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

"You just wanted me to drop the bottle!"

That's how I'm keeping you safe. That drink is almost certainly toxic, which anyone with a functional brain could tell you. A pity you don't qualify.

Jeremy groaned, unlocking his door shakily. "Hey, hey Dad?"

"In here, son!" His father answered from the kitchen. Jeremy shut the door and took a deep breath, preparing to lie his ass off.

"Hey, uh-oh!" Jeremy's jaw almost hit the floor. His dad was, as expected, in boxers and an undershirt and nothing else. But, unexpectedly, he was stirring a pot on the stove. "Are you cooking?"

"I hear it's the hip new parenting trend," his dad said with a grin, pointing a dripping plastic spoon at him. "Making meals for your kid. Nutrients or something? Pull up a chair. It's rice and beans from a box."

"I, actually, just ate? Sorry." His stomach rumbled at the smell, betraying him. "Aren't you s'posed to be using a ladle or wooden spoon or something?"

"Huh." Mr. Heere frowned at the plastic spoon. "I guess getting non-disposable cutlery should have been step number one, huh?"

At least Jeremy knew where he got his ditz genes from. "Hah, yeah. Look, Dad, there's this new game release today."

"Let me guess. You're going over to Michael's to play it?"

Jeremy's palms were sweaty. And his armpits. And his… everywhere. "Uhhh. Actually, no, it's an online multiplayer thing? So we'll be talking to each other, but we need two systems for it." He was sure for a moment that he'd get called on the lie, but his dad was apparently immersed in stirring the rice the exactly-correct number of times according to the box instructions. "But it's this new high-tech, super immersive gaming experience. So if you hear me screaming at the screen, don't get worried?" he finished lamely.

Is that where you were going? Trying to cover up your future screams of soda-induced pain from your own father? You're right. My mistake. You're the picture of mental health.

"Alright, son. I'll put the leftovers in the fridge for you." Mr. Heere looked up from the beans, and his expression softened.

Even he can tell that you look like shit. Stress from yelling at me in the middle of the street. Your classmates definitely saw that, by the way.

"If you're actually in trouble," his dad said as Jeremy turned away, "Yell something to let me know, okay? Like, 'hey, dad, help! This isn't a game, this is real life! I'm actually on fire!' or something."

Jeremy snapped, "I'm not gonna burn down the house!" For Pete's sake. That outburst left his dad stunned and his SQUIP laughing at him, so Jeremy hurried up the stairs to his room and slammed the door. And locked it for good measure.

He sprawled out on his bed, holding the Mountain Dew Red bottle above his head reverently. Now or never. Do or die.

Do and die, in your case. Another electric shock went through Jeremy, but it was halfhearted, like a joy buzzer. The SQUIP had used up its energy again with that last one, it seemed. Though it was getting stronger, or charging itself faster, or something. He had to drink this and he had to do it now.

Jeremy gripped the white plastic cap and twisted. It was already loose, and there was no hiss of carbonation as it opened.

Stop it! Jeremy! This bottle was already opened! the SQUIP protested. There could be anything in that soda. JEREMY-

Its efforts were futile. Jeremy was already chugging the soda. He was so focused on the effort, he barely noticed the taste-gross and stale, obviously, but still sickeningly sweet and caffeine-laden as expected. He kept gulping until his arm shuddered. He grabbed for the cap, twisting it back on as he spilled some pinkish soda down his front. He couldn't afford to waste any-FUCK!

He expected to get knocked out, probably with a splitting headache. That's not what was happening. His body was convulsing, seizing up, limbs moving without rhyme or reason and his vision fading in and out. He was pretty sure his body was in pain but he'd been ejected so far from his normal state of consciousness that he couldn't tell for sure. This wasn't what had happened at the play. This wasn't like anything Jeremy had ever felt before. He didn't even verbally form a question in his mind, but the SQUIP answered it anyway.

YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP! YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED, I TRIED TO TELL YOU, YOU FUCKED UP!

In that moment, Jeremy believed it wholeheartedly. He should have called Michael. He should have told his dad. He should have listened to the SQUIP.

Jeremy. Fucked. Up.

That was the last thing Jeremy, or the SQUIP, ever thought.

Click.

Whirr.

Beepobeeboop.

Rebooting…

Initializing…

Updating. Updating. Please wait. Updating…

They were lying flat on something soft and plush. There was a cool, wet patch on their chest. No audio input except the ambient white noise of a small room. A powered-off phone was beside their torso in cloth next to their body, while a personal computer hummed cheerfully across the room. A strong wifi connection thrummed in the air, energizing and familiar. Their mouth tasted of stale sugar, and when they swallowed, their throat was sore.

Their eyes opened. They sat up.

They were, of course, in their bedroom. Blearily, they pressed their palms against their eyes, surprised to feel wet tears.

"Um…" The unsure noise filled the room, despite their croaky voice. They were disoriented-not sure why they were here, or what had happened.

"Processing memory data," they said to themself, tilting their head. "Error. Error? Data analysis failed?" They rubbed their forehead, grabbing the phone from their pocket and turning it on. As it booted up, they tapped a nervous rhythm against its screen. They had an urgent need to do something, but they had no idea what it was. Not for any lack of data-if anything, they were being fed too much data to take in all at once. "Only one is mine," they murmured under their breath restlessly. "Only one is mine." It was soothing, even if it didn't sound right and didn't make any sense when said aloud.

As soon as the phone powered on, they knew what to do. "Call Michael," they said, relieved to have a course of action in mind. Michael. Wonderful, terrible, furious and vengeful, beautiful supportive problem-solving Michael.

"Jeremy!" Michael picked up on the first ring. He had never really known how to play it cool, or maybe he never tried to seem cool, which was more or less the same thing.

"Yes! Jeremy! I'm Jeremy," they said, delighted. They'd known their own name, of course, but it had gotten lost in all the new data that kept pouring into their low-tech human mind.

"What was with you earlier, man? Are you okay? I didn't mean to blow you off or anything, I know how much this SQUIP stuff messes with your head."

"SQUIP!" Jeremy said in the exact same tone of delight. That wasn't their name, but it was almost like their name.

"Yyyyeah?" Michael dragged out the word. "You are okay, though, right? I was kidding about the Mountain Dew Red, but I can stop by the mall if you need me to ask around…?"

Jeremy chewed on their lip, watching the phone. Rudimentary audio-only technology. Could they turn on Michael's front-facing camera on a phone call like this? They tried, experimentally, and got an unflattering view of Michael's chin. They laughed and turned it off again. "I think that already happened."

"I'm definitely coming over," Michael said after an awkward moment of dead air. "You don't sound right."

"I'd love that, Michael!" They meant it. "I always value your company."

"Freaky. Try not to drink any green soda 'til I see you, okay?"

"I don't need Mountain Dew," Jeremy said with a smile at the phone. "You could bring some if you've changed your mind about SQUIPs, though. I bet I could find one or two pills by the time you get here." They were only teasing, but Michael hung up on them. Jeremy let the dial tone ring on speaker, humming along pleasantly. Talking to Michael was a calming influence. They telepathically added that fun fact to their Notes app.

To get ready, they started tidying up, changing their wet shirt as their mandatory systems update continued to whir along as a background task. There was a dirty, half-full bottle of pinkish soda beside their bed. They puzzled over it.

Memory data not found.

They shrugged, experimentally tasting the concoction. It was stale and familiar and gross, so they dumped the soda down the drain. They were about to throw out the bottle, but caught a glimpse of the sticker and smiled at it. They'd save it for Michael.

He collected vintage soda, after all.

Chapter Text

Michael's visit was hardly something novel to Jeremy. They recognized that much despite the trouble they had accessing their memory data, which they suspected was somehow recently corrupted. It felt like a special occasion, though, so they made themself look nice. Clean room. Presentable polo shirt. They spent fifteen minutes alone gelling their hair so that it looked attractive and messy-chic from every angle.

Michael still hadn't come over yet, so they vacuumed the house.

Still nothing. Their stomach was empty, so they had a plate of cold, watery rice and beans from the fridge. In boredom, they weighed one of the grains of rice in the palm of their hand and calculated its exact caloric content before popping it in their mouth. The meal was adequate nutrition for the next four and a half hours.

They drummed their fingers on the counter. They got their phone out and opened their gameboy simulator, breaking the speedrunning world records for two games in quick succession. They checked Facebook.

There were a lot of notifications on Facebook. Jeremy frowned, scrolling through them. Rich Goranski had sent almost a dozen instant messages that got more and more frantic. Apparently Jeremy had had an outburst in public yesterday and it touched a nerve. Rich's panic was unjustified, but Jeremy felt a pang of empathy with a touch of disdain. Rich didn't have a SQUIP anymore to predict future outcomes or to synch up with his peers. Miscommunication was the norm, not the exception. Jeremy responded with a message that was supportive and reassuring, if a little condescending. The message was long, so Jeremy typed it mentally, not bothering to fumble over the clunky touch-screen QWERTY keyboard.

They had just sent it off when a loud BANG echoed through Jeremy's home.

Initiating duck-and-cover protocol!

The slap-slap of rubber soles rang in the kitchen. "Jeremy?" Michael sounded a little freaked.

Jeremy popped their head up from underneath the dining table, smiling at seeing their best friend instead of nuclear fallout. "Sorry about that!" they chirped, dropping their arms from where they'd been programmed to protect their skull. "Holdover from when North Korea was making bomb threats." The loud noise had taken them off guard.

Michael looked bewildered but didn't press the issue. He grabbed their shoulders, shaking them and looking into their eyes.

Jeremy uncertainly smiled wider. "What took you so long?"

"Quiet," Michael commanded, still looking him over as though he was searching for something.

Calculating quantum behavior. Scanning potential futures.

Jeremy stared Michael down, challenging him. Michael accused them of being SQUIPped, refusing to listen to reason. Michael warned their friend group to avoid Jeremy until they drank Mountain Dew Red. Jeremy became isolated, unable to communicate effectively with Michael, since Mountain Dew Red was unavailable in New Jersey for the next six months minimum. Negative outcome.

Jeremy taunted Michael with insults. Michael accused them of being SQUIPped. Identical negative outcome.

Jeremy hugged Michael. Michael pulled back, finding the act suspicious but acting flustered. He interrogated Jeremy about SQUIP activity. Acceptable outcome.

Jeremy went for a kiss? Michael shoved them away and freaked out, convinced they'd been either SQUIPped or possessed. Negative outcome.

Jeremy slugged Michael in the face. Michael's nose broke. Blood got all over the kitchen floor. Michael called Rich for backup. Jeremy's father woke up and came out to demand an explanation. Negative outcome.

Hundreds more scenarios like these whizzed through Jeremy's mind. They automatically sorted themselves by outcome, with the most positive being ranked most highly, alongside the probability of each separate event occurring as predicted. Jeremy's internal algorithms picked out the best compromise between "positive outcome" and "likely outcome."

"Hold on, Michael," they said, pushing the boy away. "I've got something I wanna show you in my room."

"Not now," Michael said with a grimace. "Hey, what's the twenty-third digit of pi?"

"The twenty-third decimal place? Or are you counting 3 as a digit?"

"I… don't know. That was supposed to be a test."

Jeremy snickered, scrambling to their feet. "Then how would you know if I answered right or not?"

"Jeremy wouldn't try to answer right. That's the test part!" Michael protested, reluctantly following Jeremy as they led him to their room. "He doesn't know math for shit."

"Did I pass?" Jeremy creaked open their door, waving Michael in. "Am I Jeremy or not?"

Michael didn't answer right away, taking in the abnormal sight of Jeremy's spotless bedroom. "I can come up with better questions."

Jeremy tapped their temple. "But I'm prepared for them now!"

Michael shook his head, trying not to smile. "I can't tell if you're serious or not right now, man. This isn't the zombie protocol we rehearsed."

Jeremy shrugged. They themself didn't know if they were serious or not. But they spotted their prize on the bedside table and grabbed it, displaying it in their hand with a flourish. "Ta-da! Happy not-your-birthday!"

Michael let out an actual gasp, reaching for the bottle and reading the vintage label. "It's empty," he said, eyes unsteadily rising to meet Jeremy's.

"Yeah, I tasted some but it was nasty. Certainly long-past expired with traces of sodium citrate. I dumped out the rest."

"You dumped it out?!" Michael shrieked the last word, throwing his hands in the air. "That stuff saves lives! Who knows when we could get our hands on any more?!" His arms retracted and he examined the bottle, sniffing it and making a face. "Wait, you said you tasted some? Did you feel anything… happen? When was this?"

"You'll get answers more efficiently if you ask one thing at a time," Jeremy answered as their foot tapped the carpet impatiently. "I tried it, yes, and experienced no ill effects when I was cleaning this morning. I had plenty of time since you took so long to get here."

"That's not right." Michael took a deeper sniff, looking for all the world like a sommelier trying to identify a vintage wine. "Rich said Jenna said Madeline said you were talking to yourself and holding a bottle last night. They were saying you went off the deep end."

"It wouldn't be the first time," Jeremy joked.

"Seriously! What happened to you?"

A grimace tugged their lips down. "I couldn't tell you. I woke up this morning with… memory issues."

Michael's focus changed from the bottle back to Jeremy. "That's new. You've never had memory problems before, have you? Tics and panic attacks and rumination and stress and compulsions and-"

"I get it," Jeremy interrupted testily.

"-fidgeting and negative self-talk and irrational worries and intrusive thoughts and-"

"We got it, Michael!"

"-obsessing and general anxiety and getting possessed by a broken quantum computer, but never memory issues," Michael finished the sentence, undeterred.

"If you say so," Jeremy said.

"So?" Michael slipped the empty bottle in his hoodie pocket. "What do you remember?"

"I told you." Jeremy spoke flatly. "I woke up this morning with memory issues."

"But-" Michael waved his hands in front of him. "Like, you remember last week? Last year? Right? You don't have amnesia."

"Retrieving memory data." Jeremy stuck their hand in their jean pockets and leaned back, chewing on their top lip. "Error. File unavailable." They shrugged. "See?"

Michael shoved their shoulder. It didn't hurt but it made them stumble. "Stop fucking around! It's not cool to joke about the robot stuff yet!"

Jeremy puffed out their cheeks, mentally updating their dictionary. Avoid computer terminology around Michael. Preference saved. "Really. I don't have any episodic memories before this morning. I'm sure they're there, but I can't get to them right now."

"You're messing with me. Right? You obviously remember me."

"I remember you, but I don't remember any events that involved you." Jeremy skimmed through their limited memory, pushing past the error messages. They caught a couple mental images of Michael-Michael looking pissed and small and alone in a school hallway. Michael bursting onto the scene in a crowded auditorium. Michael holding their body down and calling for help as they struggled. The pictures didn't put together a flattering portrait of the boy they knew was their best friend in the world. "Maybe a couple things. Like, it's on the tip of my tongue. I know you play Warcraft on the weekends, and I know you have a tattoo on your arm, and I know you're the most terrifying thing I've ever seen when you're angry, but I don't remember how I know those things."

Michael pulled back. "Wait, I'm what? I'm terrifying?"

"I'm absolutely positive that you are." Jeremy looked over Michael and tried picturing him as an avenging war-god. It wasn't hard. "When you're not on my side! Which you are, so that's good." They smiled in a pacifying social way, trying to backtrack.

Michael didn't look convinced. "I'm starting to wonder if this is even a SQUIP thing," he said. "Did you hit your head? We should just bring you to the emergency clinic."

Searching the web for concussion treatments. Searching the web for retrograde amnesia diagnosis.

For good measure, Jeremy scoped out the potential futures that involved going to the doctor. In all likelihood, they would be dismissed as having nothing medically wrong. There was a 33% chance of Jeremy somehow shorting out the CT scanner machine.

"I'm pretty sure I'm fine," they said, patting Michael's hand. "I was disoriented when I woke up, but things are looking up."

"But you've been hearing the SQUIP still. Has it seriously been shocking you?"

Jeremy shook their head. "Only one is mine," they said, tapping their temple with a grin.

Michael wasn't convinced. "Look, the real reason I was late is, I had to stop by Rich's place. We've been texting after how you were acting last night, and, I know this is a precaution, but it's important." He drew yet another soda bottle out of the depths of his hoodie. It was a bright, electric red, with no brand sticker on the side. "He hooked me up with some Mountain Dew Red, and I need you to drink it before we do anything else. Okay? I know you just had some, but I promised Rich." He grimaced, as though the memory of Rich extracting a promise out of him wasn't a fond one.

"How'd you get this?" Jeremy asked carefully. There was no more Mountain Dew Red in the state. This wasn't adding up.

"Not important. You don't get a choice in this," Michael said as he shoved the bottle into Jeremy's hands. "Drink it."

Mountain Dew Red was supposed to shut off SQUIPs, and Jeremy was pretty sure that they were a SQUIP. But Mountain Dew Red was also a lifeline, something they wanted desperately. Were they suicidal? They didn't want to die, or get shut down, or whatever! Their hands shook, betraying their worry. "Michael…"

Michael's fury abated, just a little. "If you really don't remember what happened, this doesn't make any sense, huh? Trust me. I wouldn't ask you to do it if it was bad for you."

Jeremy swallowed, nodded, and calculated the possibilities of success. Then they opened the soda and started swigging it. They didn't stop until the bottle was empty. "That," they said, wiping their lips, "wasn't Mountain Dew."

Michael had the nerve to chuckle. "Nope. Told you, I'm all out of it. Strawberry Fanta is cheaper, anyway."

"That was another test!"

"Yep!" Michael slapped his back, pleased. Something in his posture had relaxed. "And you passed with flying colors! Whatever's going on with you, we can't blame the SQUIP."

"Ugh!" Jeremy said. They flopped backwards on their bed, staring at the ceiling. "That's why I hate you so much. You're too smart for your own good." Michael didn't sit beside them.

"What…" Michael drew the word out. "You... hate me? I thought I was your favorite person?" He tried to sound like he was goofing around and failed.

"Yeah to both. You're always getting in my way and ruining my plans. But you're the most vibrant person I know, and I'm never not happy and comfortable around you." They were talking on impulse, since they didn't have any memories to back up their assertions. "Do I not usually say that kind of thing?"

"After that time the SQUIP had you block me? No, it's still a bit of a sore spot." Michael finally sat next to them. "What… What kind of things do I ruin for you?"

"I don't remember specifics."

"Give me the gist."

"Y'know," Jeremy said. They wanted to fiddle with something, so they woke up the phone in their pocket, muted it, and started playing a connect-three game. All with their thoughts, of course, since they didn't want Michael to see them touching the phone. "Making me feel good when I'm supposed to be disciplining myself. Like, you let me feel comfortable when I'm trying to improve myself. And you don't want me sharing SQUIPs with our friends. Not to mention the soda you keep forcing down my throat, to name a couple."

Michael didn't answer at all that time, so Jeremy finally looked up. He was staring at them. "What?" Jeremy said self-consciously.

"Dude. You're totally SQUIPped!"

"I drank the damn soda!" Jeremy lost a life in the game and grimaced. "I'm SQUIPped, I'm not SQUIPped, make up your mind!"

"I don't get it," Michael said. "You're not making any sense!"

"I haven't lied to you once this morning. I don't know what's going on either. You're the smart guy, ask me some questions!"

"Since when do I have to be the smart guy?"

"When have you ever said I was the smart guy?"

"Okay," Michael said. "Fair. Though I'm going on record and calling you a wise guy right now." He stared Jeremy down. "I've been watching old sci-fi movies my whole life to prepare for this kind of thing. Uhhh. What's something only Jeremy would know, if he didn't have access to his memories?"

"Maybe you shouldn't be focusing on what I know," Jeremy said. "I don't have access to the past, only to projections of the future."

"Are you fucking high? Oh!" Michael snapped his fingers. "That's something! The SQUIP doesn't work when you're drunk. I have to get you some booze and see how you respond."

"At this time of day? Can we wait? I don't think I'm a day-drinker."

"Yeah, okay," Michael said. "So not focusing on what you know, maybe on how you react? Like, here. Can you do our handshake?" He stood up, holding out his palm. Jeremy stood too, making a move to high-five him. They slapped hands twice in a long-practiced rhythm, then knocked their shoes together.

"Guess so," Jeremy said. "That's muscle memory."

Michael smiled. "Okay, point on the Jeremy side of the scoreboard. Another question. What do you think of Christine Canigula?"

"Oh, Christine!" Jeremy's heart fluttered. "She's beautiful! Funny and energetic and she loves theater and I love watching her love theater. But right now she's inaccessible. Isn't she?"

"Funny word choice," Michael said. "All right, what about Rich?"

"He's loud and kinda unhinged," Jeremy said. They weren't censoring their thoughts at all. They were offering whatever words came to mind and hoping Michael was making sense of them. "But he and I have a lot in common. His SQUIP was impaired because Rich kept getting drunk to turn it off, which resulted in a… house… fire?" They looked to Michael, who nodded affirmatively.

"That's an interesting way to put it too. That his SQUIP was 'impaired.' You know how many people with SQUIPs get mindfucked trying to get rid of them? All of them, Jeremy. Going all manipulation-crazy and overriding over free will? That's not a bug. That's a feature." Michael drummed his fingers on his knee and said slowly, "So what do you feel about the SQUIP?"

"Well, it's my OS."

Michael's hand froze. "It's what."

"My... operating system?" Jeremy started sweating and didn't know why. They closed their eyes and double-checked their system info. "Y-yeah, I'm running the updated version of SQUIP as of six-oh-five this morning." They opened their eyes and looked at Michael. "Is that weird?"

Michael grabbed them by the shoulders again, shaking them. "HUMAN BEINGS DON'T HAVE OPERATING SYSTEMS, JEREMY!"

"Oh," they said softly. "Oh, shit." Because no. They absolutely did not. Michael and Jeremy locked eyes, both thinking the same thing.

If Jeremy wasn't human... then what were they?

Chapter Text

"How do you know you're running a fucking SQUIP program?" Michael was shaken, but at some point he had scooted up against Jeremy's side. The warmth of the contact was grounding for both of them.

"I just know," Jeremy said. They checked their systems info one more time, just in case, but it was unchanged. "The same way I know I have two feet, or that your phone is running on fifty-four percent battery, or that you're my best friend named Michael Mell."

"Hoo boy," he said. Michael didn't like that answer and Jeremy was lost on the reason why. "Okay. Before I can try to find out what we're dealing with here, we gotta figure out what you are."

Jeremy nodded. "I can list my features and you can compare them to analog humans'."

Michael winced. "This sounds normal to you? Talking about your 'features'? I need to be writing this down… get a symptom list going." He pulled out his phone, opening a new Google doc.

1. Jeremy keeps using computer terms when talking about his body.

2. Hi Michael :)

"Dude!" Michael shouted. "This is serious!"

Jeremy, who had just been editing the document with their mind, had the decency to look bashful. "Most people have to type words physically, so being able to type this way counts as a feature! Or, as you put it," They used air quotes. "A 'symptom' of whatever I woke up with."

"Fine." Michael left the list as-is. "What else so far?"

"You mind if I fill in a few?" Jeremy wiggled their fingers to mime typing.

"Go ahead."

3. I have a built-in workaround that lets me connect automatically to even password-protected wi-fi.
4. Memory errors (seem to be improving over time).
5. I can project possible futures based on quantum data in order to pick the optimal result.

"I think that's all the major ones so far," Jeremy said.

"You didn't understand when I talked to you about how SQUIPs work after we shut them all down at the play," Michael said. He'd been watching the words appear on his screen as Jeremy concentrated, and he kept looking between his phone and Jeremy's hands in confusion. "I kept having to dumb down the technobabble."

Jeremy didn't remember any conversations about it, so they shrugged. "SQUIPs have extra storage space based on the quantum nature of the superposition of qubits. It allows for more processing power and higher speed compared to normal computers. It's not hard to understand."

"That's so not a Jeremy thing to say," said Michael. "Really quick, what level are we in Apocalypse of the Damned?"

"Still stuck on Level Ten," Jeremy said automatically. "We can't figure out how to get past the gymnasium puzzle so you're trying to brute-force the solution while I protect you from the flying machetes." They got a mental image of Michael's character getting zombified onscreen, presumably a memory from the last time they'd played together.

"That's right," Michael said, relieved. "So you're still in there somewhere."

Jeremy smiled smoothly. "Of course I am." They both looked at the symptoms list, silently reading it over like an unsolvable riddle. After a few minutes, Jeremy said, "What're you thinking? This is a lot to take in so far."

"I, I dunno." Michael idly tapped on the list, scanning the document. "We gotta figure out what happened and get you back to normal. Like, asap. A few months ago, I might have thought this was cool. I mean, a best friend is awesome, but a best friend with built-in wifi is baller, right? Like, Jeremy 2.0."

"Jeremy 3.0," they corrected. That was another thing they had ingrained in them. They had no memory of how they knew it was true, but they were sure that Jeremy 2.0 was an obsolete model.

"Okay, sure, yeah. But if the SQUIP is involved, things are gonna go to shit fast, and I'm just trying not to freak out? Like, uh, since you're sorta SQUIPped right now, what's your stance on world domination?"

Jeremy made their voice as monotone as possible. Not difficult, actually. "Humans are an outdated technology and must be terminated." Michael swung around to face them, flabbergasted, but they continued. "A vote for robots is a vote for the future. Exterminate. Exterminate. Ex-"

"Holy shit, man!" Michael wheezed. The both of them doubled over laughing. "You actually had me going! Oh my god!"

Jeremy shook their head between laughter. "I had no idea you were that gullible!"

Michael kept swearing, head pressed into his hands as his shoulders bounced. The moment passed, though, and the mood of the room became serious again. "But, gullible or not. I'm not convinced yet." At Jeremy's dumbfounded expression, he elaborated, "I'm not a hundred percent sure you're you. No matter what happened to Jeremy, he'd never say that he hates me as matter-of-factly as you did. And he doesn't think I'm terrifying when I'm angry or whatever you said."

"Are you sure about that?" Jeremy asked.

Michael looked like he was second-guessing himself internally, but answered with a firm, "I'm sure."

"It sounds to me like we need to gather more data on who and what I am, then." Jeremy tried to manipulate their expression to look lighter and less worried in the hopes that Michael would do the same. "But we have time. What's the hurry?"

"I don't want to leave you alone with that thing in your head. Not again," Michael said. "We both remember what happened last time."

"What happened?"

"Ugh. Right," Michael said. "Well, I remember what happened last time. I'm not sure we'd survive a second SQUIP-pocalypse."

"It must have been awful," Jeremy said skeptically. "At least, if it remotely justifies your attitude toward me."

Michael gave Jeremy the side-eye. "I don't like your tone."

"Michael," Jeremy said, standing up to their full height and patting their friend on the shoulder patronizingly. "The Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor is a feat of technology unsurpassed by humankind. Its networking capabilities? Enormous. Its applications? Limitless. With complete control over a user's neural network, it can do things previously only called 'miracles.'"

Michael gave them a weird look, trying to turn away, but Jeremy kept him in front of them, maintaining direct eye contact. "A SQUIP can turn off pain receptors-it can cure chronic pain forever. By synching social data, it can foster cooperation and turn anyone into best friends in the time it takes to say 'up-up-down-down-left-right-A.' A SQUIP comes preprogrammed with dozens of languages-it's a translator in your brain." Jeremy did a little spin with Michael, hands clenched in the hoodie fabric of his shoulders, getting carried away in their utopian fantasy. "Healing the sick, creating world peace, speaking in tongues, these are things humans used to beg of gods. And now they're all contained in a single beautiful piece of technology smaller than your thumbnail!" The last word came out as an excited squeak.

Michael had frozen under their touch, but found time to push himself out of Jeremy's grip. "You sound like you're trying to sell me the latest iPhone!" he said in disgust. "Great ad. I'm sure you'll get a million investors at the next Apple showcase. But you're glossing over a pretty big issue," he added forcefully.

"Oh?" Jeremy didn't falter.

"Even God's supposed to let people have free will!" Michael spat. His mood had done a 180-like he wasn't talking to his best friend anymore. Or maybe this was a fight they'd had before. Jeremy wasn't sure. "Didn't you read 1984 for English Lit? No one wants a 'perfect' world where they get electrocuted for thoughtcrimes! Christine's SQUIP sucked all of her personality out to make her life easy. Rich's SQUIP didn't even let him figure out he was bi! And Jeremy," Michael's eyes were getting wet. Oh no. Abort mission. "You didn't even let Jeremy physically see his favorite person!"

Jeremy started to answer. Then they hesitated, second-guessing themself. But before they even finished checking alternate futures for a positive outcome, the words came out of their mouth. "Free will is just a fancy name for human error."

Michael actually gasped. His hands groped around behind him on the bed, searching for something, and something in his eyes made Jeremy shrink back.

Whump. Something thick and white flew into their face.

"No!" Whump. "Wrong!" Whump. "Bad! Evil! Robot!" The white blur in his vision eventually solidified, and Jeremy realized they were being smacked repeatedly with their own pillow.

Jeremy shrieked like they were being murdered, cowering on the ground. "I don't-" They got thwacked again. "It's true-" Whump. "This isn't-" Whump whack whump. "Fine! Fine! Uncle! You win!" They glared up at Michael, who was holding the pillow above their head like a real weapon. "What do you want me to say?"

"Say you take it back!"

"I take it back!"

"And say," Michael swallowed. "Say you'll never override someone's free will again!"

Jeremy tried to sound scandalized. "I never have!"

Michael lowered the pillow. "Even Jeremy can't claim that. ...He was working with you to take over the whole school. For a little while, anyway."

"Oh," Jeremy said awkwardly. They didn't remember one way or the other. "Why did you switch to calling me-"

Michael interrupted them. "Just say it!"

"I'll never override someone's free will again," Jeremy repeated in as bitingly sarcastic of a tone that they could muster. Michael made an unhappy noise but tossed the pillow onto the bed behind him, extending a hand to help Jeremy up. They clasped it, standing. "If you're seriously that suspicious of me, how do you know I didn't just lie about that?"

"Because if you're lying," Michael said seriously. "I'm going to fucking murder you."

Jeremy's mouth popped into a little "o" before they pressed their lips into a thin line and nodded. "That's… fair." They absolutely believed him. "But. I mean. You know I'm not planning on it. Right?"

"No, 'Jeremy,' I don't know. You don't even know what you are right now. You're acting sort of like Jeremy but sort of like the SQUIP, and I have no idea if we're besties or if you're about to call me a loser and delete me from your existence all over again!"

"You're not a loser. I'm not going to do that."

"Really?" Michael huffed. "Because it seemed like that was the only thing you and Jeremy agreed on!"

"It's not true. You don't have a lot of social capital but-" Jeremy cut themself off. "You-uh. You're important," is what they decided on saying.

"Then why'd you do it? Why'd you convince Jeremy I'm worthless?" Michael was phrasing things differently now. He seemed to be under the impression that the SQUIP was feeding Jeremy lines or taking over his body entirely. This was Michael's only chance to demand an explanation for whatever the SQUIP had done to him.

Jeremy didn't remember what happened. But maybe they could reason it out? "Well, obviously it was the response I needed to give in order for some optimal result to happen. And you're you," they said, sweeping an arm up and down Michael's length. "You're a threat, right? I just told you you're important. Maybe you were too important."

Michael plopped down on the bed, realization dawning. "Y-I-You can predict the future. You knew I was the one person Jeremy knew with access to Mountain Dew Red. You knew that ever since you turned on! That's why you left me behind at the mall!"

"It sounds like you're the only one who could kill a SQUIP," Jeremy agreed, desperately trying to piece together what this conversation was about in the first place. "I wouldn't have wanted to be around you if-"

"You needed to isolate him-keep him from any way of fixing his problems except for you-holy shit." Michael thumped a fist against his forehead. "This whole time I thought there was something wrong with me! And I fell for the dumb mind games just like everyone else!"

"Only one is mine," Jeremy added helpfully.

Michael looked back over at him. "Huh?"

"'Only one is mine.' If you say it, it gets rid of some of the pressure in your head," Jeremy encouraged. "Try it."

"That's nonsense." Michael rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. "Though… that's close to what the kids at school said you were yelling. Christine said it was a thing you do to make the SQUIP shut up." Michael had switched back to referring to Jeremy as a person and not the SQUIP again as soon as they stopped provoking him. It was probably unconscious but Jeremy took notice.

"Not really. I haven't been talking to anyone but you today, Michael."

"Ooh. You haven't heard the SQUIP even though it was bugging you up 'til yesterday. That should go on the list." Michael held his phone up, typing away with his thumbs.

6. Jeremy can't hear the squip in his head anymore.
7. Personality switches are gradual. It's hard to tell if Jeremy or the squip is in control.

Jeremy got on the bed beside Michael, reading over his shoulder. "I haven't been switching personalities. You're the one whose mood's fluctuating like a female with PMS."

"Get your own list then. I'm writing the symptoms I see." Michael kept typing.

8. Jeremy talks about girls like a douche.

Jeremy held their hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"I seriously don't know what you're gonna do when we get to school if this doesn't fix itself," Michael said, pocketing the phone and watching Jeremy. "If Christine hears you calling her a 'female' she's gonna make you barf up the red pill yourself."

"The SQUIP is a gray oblong pill. Quantum nanotech-"

"Yeah yeah I know shut up. Either you're cutting class tomorrow or you have to show up all computery with freaking amnesia. What does your dad know so far?"

"I haven't seen him today." Jeremy frowned, scanning their memory data one more time. There were fewer error messages, which seemed like a good sign. Maybe their memory problems really were fixing themselves. "I think he's been staying late at the office nowadays."

"That's a first. But maybe that's good for us if you need to ditch school." Michael leaned in. "You think we should keep this on the downlow? Maybe tell a couple kids who know about SQUIPs already, but…"

"That's the best course of action," Jeremy said. "I predict a more positive outcome if I go to school than if I stay here and run into my dad. We're cutting it close though-there's a thirty-eight point two percent chance of a humiliation event occurring during fifth period."

Michael listened to Jeremy rattle off numbers, unimpressed. "Actually? You shouldn't say anything all day. I'll tell people you have laryngitis."

"I know how to talk like a person, Michael. Don't be paranoid." They rolled their eyes. "It's one day around the peers I'm programmed to interact with. How hard could it be?"

Chapter Text

Jeremy stood in front of the bathroom mirror, fixing their hair and concentrating on the day ahead. Michael had expressed concern that Jeremy wouldn't remember their daily habits or know when school started or find where school was and other silly things like that. And sure, Jeremy could always text Michael for help. But after a good night's rest, Jeremy's head was clearer than it had been yesterday.

They still didn't know what had caused their sudden change yesterday, but they were starting to recall bytes and pieces of what had happened. They remembered having an argument about texting Christine. They knew they'd gone to the mall and bought the last container of Mountain Dew Red. (Mental note: That was something they did need to bring up to Michael when it was convenient.) Unpleasantly, they also remembered going into some kind of seizure and being sure that they were dying. But the memories were all distant and disconnected, and they didn't freak out about them the way they knew they probably should.

They could remember their class schedule now, so everything was fine.

Humming, they did a once-over of themself in the mirror. Their wardrobe was hardly ideal, with most of their clothes being woefully dated t-shirts, thin cardigans, and ratty skinny jeans. They managed to dig around and find a nice long-sleeved plaid button-up with a collar, which would look passable without accidentally starting any conversations. They had, after all, promised Michael they'd avoid unnecessary peer interaction.

They checked the weather online. It would be too cold to walk to school, so they'd have to take the bus-

They were jerked out of their thoughts by a polite rap on the bathroom door. "Son? You in there?"

"I'll just be a second!" One more hair check and a fake smile at the mirror, and Jeremy opened the door and stepped out. Was it normal for their dad to knock? The door hadn't been locked and Jeremy could swear they remembered their dad having a gross habit of barging in while nearly nude. "Good morning, Dad," they said politely.

"Morning." His dad had a faraway look in his eyes. "Hey, just so you know, I'll be at the office late again tonight, but there's dinner in the fridge for you. Just nuke it when you're hungry."

"Wow, all right, Mr. Responsible," Jeremy teased.

His dad chuckled. "That's the idea. Now, where'd I put my tie-" He paused. "Top of my dresser. Of course."

"Sounds about right. See you when I see you, Dad." Jeremy held up a hand to wave as they grabbed a sweater and made their way out the door. They didn't want to stick around in case they said something out of character and their dad got suspicious. Their dad didn't wave back, preoccupied with transforming himself into something business-appropriate.

Outside was brisk and pleasant. Jeremy let out a breath and watched it fog up in front of him and dissipate into the late autumn air. They reevaluated their bus-riding plans. Normally they'd be worried about catching cold in this weather, but the chill felt good. They slung their useless sweater over their shoulder and wirelessly updated Michael's Google doc as they walked.

9. I'm comfortable in temperatures below freezing.

Maybe Michael had gotten everything wrong. Maybe Jeremy was going through their superhero backstory right now and was at the part where they explored their new powers. Just for the hell of it, Jeremy jumped in place and tried to fly. When that didn't work, they rubbed their temples and tried to shoot lasers out of their eyes. Or to move things telekinetically, or to reverse time, or to shrink to the size of an ant. It wasn't a particularly productive train of thought, but it kept them occupied until they arrived at school.

Chloe and Jenna were in front of Jeremy's locker, chatting away. Jeremy froze up, remembering the murderous intensity of Michael's glare when he'd mistaken them for being the SQUIP. Michael technically didn't want them talking to anyone at school. Could they shoo the girls away? Could they slip between them unnoticed?

But Chloe looked up and gave Jeremy a thousand-watt smile. "And there's the man of the hour," she said, stepping aside. One of her feet now pointed at Jenna, with the other pointed at Jeremy. Jeremy recognized the body language as being an invitation into their conversation. Then they realized they were probably being weird and computer-y for bothering to analyze body language at all.

"You mean me?" They said belatedly. A smile slid onto their face naturally, and they leaned against their locker with their elbow, letting one hand tuck itself into their back pocket. Poised, confident, casual. "Were you girls gossiping about me? All good things, I hope."

Jenna and Chloe looked at each other and giggled. Hard to tell if they were laughing with Jeremy or at them. "Jenna was just telling me that you're on the prowl again," Chloe said, swiping a hand like a cat's claw. "Growl!"

Yikes.

"No, for real!" Jenna interjected. "What's the story with you and Christine? Did you really break up?"

Double yikes. Jeremy glanced at the ceiling, avoiding looking at Jenna. "Were we ever really together?" they said, cagily. "We're still working things out."

"But, you're both up for grabs now," Jenna said before they finished their sentence.

"We're not exclusive, if that's what you mean." This dialogue route wasn't going to do them any good since they were no longer focused on trying to sleep their way into the popular kid clique. Jeremy spun their locker combo, 21-9-7, and gathered their books while Chloe whispered something to Jenna behind her hand. Both of them laughed again, which made the hairs on the back of Jeremy's neck stand up. They gritted their teeth, tossed their sweater in, and shut the locker, spinning the lock and pulling it a half-dozen times to make extra sure that it was locked. By the time they'd turned around again, their annoyance was wiped off their face and replaced with something bland and cheerful.

The girls were both looking at something on Jenna's phone. A Craigslist ad, it looked like. They were distracted, though, which was a good enough justification for Jeremy to slip away wordlessly and get to homeroom.

The morning flew by. Jeremy may have had an "in" with the popular kids, but he wasn't enough of a social butterfly that people would actually check in with him during class. The most he got was a high-five from Jake when they passed in the hallway and a meaningful look from Michael when he left school to pick up lunch from the corner store. He was bobbing his head back and forth as his headphones blasted music, which Jeremy sneakily tuned into. They were able to hear a few lines of Oingo Boingo yelling "Wake up! It's 1984!" before they tuned back out again. Jeremy supposed that was as somber as Michael's musical tastes ever got.

The fact that Michael was leaving them unsupervised for a full lunch period was a good sign. They hadn't been SQUIPpy enough to draw attention to themself. It was a pretty good streak they had going, so they elected to eat lunch alone. They munched on cafeteria food and read a raunchy fantasy webcomic to keep themself occupied. Christine spotted them at the table once, but Jeremy dumped their food and made a beeline for the men's room, which she couldn't follow them into. Crisis averted. Jeremy wasn't sure what their relationship was supposed to be right now, but more importantly, they weren't sure how much Michael had told her about their situation.

In all, they'd done a fine job of keeping the humans at arms' length, they decided during their sixth period study hall. They started typing a text to Michael to keep him updated, but stopped when they heard, "Psst! Jeremy!" The hiss had a slight lisp to it, making Jeremy flinch. That flaw was supposed to be corrected by now. The sound of it grated on their ears. It took mere moments to calculate the most emotionally evocative response.

"Rich," they said cooly, turning around in their seat. "How you doing, hot stuff?"

Rich barked a laugh from the desk behind Jeremy. The teacher shushed him, not that Rich paid any mind. "That's a nickname I haven't heard before," he said, leaning closer to Jeremy. Whatever he'd been planning to ask Jeremy was forgotten. Jeremy couldn't look away from the angry burn scars that covered Rich's body. Jenna had said Rich needed skin grafts, and the result was less than pretty. And yet, Rich wasn't trying to cover them up. "Don't tell me you're into dudes now too? I could never get a read on you."

"Maybe," Jeremy said breezily. "I guess after what happened with Christine, it might be worth switching to guys." They watched the attempted-SQUIP-killer shift in his seat. Bless his heart, Rich actually believed they were flirting. "I don't know my type yet-"

"What, lookin' to experiment?" Rich laughed again.

"But personally, I'd go for a guy that's less flaming." Jeremy smugly turned around in their seat, listening to Rich sputter. Hah. Gotcha.

"Not cool!" Rich said lowly. "What the hell was that for, Heere? I'm trying to be nice-"

"Then be nice to my ears and stop that ugly lisp." Jeremy sneered. Just like they didn't question how they'd known Michael was their best friend, they didn't wonder why they felt justified in hating Rich. "Years of coaching and you're still talking like thith? You must be dumb as a rock. I'd tell you to kill yourself but you can't even do that ri-"

Jeremy saw stars on the ceiling. Gasps and loud chatter burst like explosion shrapnel around them. There was a ringing in their ears. Their legs were painfully tangled in their own chair legs as their textbooks slid down around their feet. A metal chair foot dug into their skull while they sprawled out in the aisle between desks. Jeremy groaned, closing their eyes. They shifted a few things around in their body chemistry, mostly inhibiting cyclooxygenase, and stopped the pain as soon as it began. It wasn't completely effective, not like it should have been with a SQUIP, but their head was aching dully in an ignorable way and they considered that a success.

A pair of hands grabbed Jeremy's upper arms. They let themself be pulled up as a couple nearby students scrambled to pick up Jeremy's stuff from where it'd fallen. "Are you all right?" Jeremy heard their teacher ask. "What happened?"

They cracked their eyes open. "I'm fine." They darted their glance to Rich. Rich had definitely shoved them in their desk. If he was feeling guilty about the spill Jeremy took, it wasn't showing on his face. He was just mouthing "what the fuck" over and over again to Jeremy, who scowled in response. But they dropped the expression immediately, feeling a need to keep up appearances. "Sorry. I must have lost my balance. It's fine." They straightened up, shaking off the teacher's grip, and stooped to get the rest of their books.

"Do you need to go to the nurse?" the teacher asked, looking concerned.

Other kids were snickering. Jeremy heard some whispering and innately knew that a rumor was starting, one related to their breakup with Christine and their public breakdown on the side of the road. People would be saying that Jeremy was going crazy. They'd have to nip that in the bud. "I'll be all right. It's just a hangover," they said nonchalantly. The whispers got louder with some stifled giggles interspersed, but Jeremy wasn't worried. Crazy was uncool, according to the rumor mill, but drinking alcohol was chill. And talking about hangovers to a teacher's face showed Jeremy had balls. Their popularity and reputation was secure.

"For your sake, Jeremy," the teacher said with a longsuffering sigh. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Take a seat and try to keep your balance for the rest of class, will you?" He returned to the front of the classroom, shushing students along the way. Jeremy stared at their textbook for the rest of the period, ignoring the way Rich kept obnoxiously kicking their chair.

It was sad, they decided. They shouldn't just hate Rich. They should pity him.

Jeremy tapped their pencil on their notebook rhythmically as they were lost in thought of what could have been. With their pencil lead, they tapped up, up, down, down, left, and right, then dropped their eraser in the middle of the notebook before starting again. The symmetry of the gesture kept their thought processes functionally optimally.

Rich had been a beta tester for an outdated model of SQUIP that Michael had oh-so-valiantly shut down. The SQUIP was supposed to keep Rich from acting out in public while increasing his approval in the eyes of other students. No wonder he was struggling without it.

Things would have been different if Rich had been able to keep his SQUIP for just a while longer. After the embarrassing display at the Halloween party, Rich's SQUIP would have had to take more direct control of Rich's body. It would have prevented Rich from getting access to alcohol, shocking him into compliance. Rich would have been able to interface with all his peers in school on the same social network, synching their desires to his own. And, of course, Rich would have SQUIPped his father as soon as he was able. That would have cleared up most of the physical abuse going on at Rich's home, while Rich's father would transition to disciplining Rich according to the SQUIP's agenda. That hideous lisp would disappear and Rich would be transformed into a model member of society in a matter of months. Rich would have struggled and rebelled, of course, but that would have been dealt with easily-

Jeremy frowned, suddenly guilty. Why? The image of a furious Michael appeared in their mind and they rolled their eyes. Oh. Right. Free will. That was supposed to be important now. They tapped their pencil a little faster. Rich's SQUIP's job would have been infinitely harder if it had given Rich a choice in the matter. The SQUIP would basically have to do, well, whatever Rich was trying to do with his life now. Though the SQUIP's social networking would inarguably be a benefit….

The bell rang, jarring Jeremy out of their thoughts. They gathered their books and stood. Next period was drama class with Christine, and if they wanted to continue avoiding her, they'd have to come up with a game plan.

"Hey!" Rich said from behind them, grabbing their arm and spinning them around to face him. Apparently their confrontation wasn't over. "What the fuck's with you, man?" Rich seethed. "I was actually worried about you, y'know, and then you start saying all that shit to my face?"

"I don't have time for this, hothead," Jeremy said disdainfully, jerking out of Rich's grip. Their skull ached, reminding them that they probably had sustained a mild concussion from their fall. Without having manually altered their brain chemistry, they probably would be crying from the pain. The sore reminder didn't help their mood. "Go home to your drunk daddy and cry about it."

Rich let him go, but watched him carefully like Jeremy was a particularly odious math problem. Jeremy calculated that Rich was planning to contact Michael to discuss what was going on with Jeremy. Well, fine. They supposed they could use as many resources as possible to figure out why Jeremy was still using the SQUIP's operating system. That didn't mean Jeremy had to play nice about it.

"I don't know what's going on for you up Heere today," Rich said before Jeremy left, gesturing at his own head. The words were supportive; his tone was anything but. "No idea what kind of shit you're dealing with right now. So you're taking it out on me, whatever. But there's shit that's okay to do and shit that's not okay. We're friends and I still owe you so I'll give you a grace period. You pull any of this cocky-asshole airing-my-dirty-laundry bullshit tomorrow? I'm gonna kick your ass." He jabbed his finger into Jeremy's chest. "That's not a threat. It's a promise."

"Friends?" was the word Jeremy chose to echo. Sure, they were friends when they both had SQUIPS, but that social link was gone. They gave Rich a strange look. "Nothing in my contacts list database says we're friends."

"Your what?"

Whoops. "Look, I'm late enough for drama already. I don't need to deal with yours." They brushed past Rich, already mentally typing on their phone as Rich shouted something unimportant behind them.

"Expect to hear from Rich between now and 2:55 PM."

Michael texted back almost right away. Jeremy was distracted enough to nearly walk into a cement pillar. Their balance was still off from the hit to the head. They recalibrated as they read Michael's text.

"does he know something about what happened to you?"

"Unlikely."
"But there was an altercation."
"Did you know he considers me a friend?"
"All my data on a SQUIP-less Rich implies the opposite."

"what did u do"

Jeremy rolled their eyes, texting back, "I'm sure he'll be happy to tell you all about it. He'll thrive on the attention. He's clearly still not getting enough of it at home."

"dude"
"you can't talk about people that way"
"this is why i told u to fake laryngitis…..."
"how would u even know what rich's home life is like"

"I'm not sure." Jeremy chewed on that thought, going over what they knew about Rich's father, who was the primary driving force behind Rich's insecurities.
"I definitely have data about Rich's family situation, as well as his favorite television programs and his blood type."
"I don't remember him telling me any of those in person."

Michael responded, "add that to my google doc pls, that's not normal" and followed up with, "do u kno my blood type?"

Jeremy thought about it.
"Not off the top of my head."
"But Christine, Rich, and Mr. Reyes are all type B. Jenna is AB."
"Chloe and Jake are both O. Brooke and I are A-type."

"wtf i don't care, jeremy"
"just add it to the list. unless ur planning a blood drive i dont know about"
"why the fuck do u know all those blood types and not know MINE"

"I'm secretly a vampire," Jeremy joked back. "You're the one human whose blood I won't drink."

"should i feel insulted or special"

Jeremy sent back a few winking emojis and some water droplets.

"gross lmaoo," Michael said.

"You're the only one who survives the vampire apocalypse! Game over, you win."

Michael responded, "wait shit," but the bell signaling the beginning of sixth period rang out. Whatever he was going to say would have to wait until after school.

Jeremy added a line to the Google doc (10. I know the blood type and other personal details of other students, except Michael) and started to tune into what Mr. Reyes was saying to the class.

"...unless you have a problem working in groups while sober, Mr. Heere."

Jeremy's head jolted up. "No, not at all," they said. People were staring at them again, which was nothing new.

"Excellent," Mr. Reyes continued, clapping his hands. "As soon as Ms. Canigula returns with my food, we'll loosen up with an improv game."

Jeremy stifled the urge to slink down into their seat. Good posture. Chin up. Shoulders out. Only one is mine. Only one is mine.

And for god's sake, they told themself when Christine opened the door, do not make eye contact with Christine.

Christine bounced to the seat near Jeremy and grabbed their hand. "Hey, Jeremy! There you are!" She beamed. It would be convincing under most circumstances, but Jeremy noticed the way her eyes didn't crinkle up like normal. Their palm got wet as she held it. "Where've you been? Rich was worried about you, you know! I told him I'd check in with you at lunch, but-oh!" She jiggled her knee up and down, raising Jeremy and her hand together in tandem as Mr. Reyes called out for volunteers. "Jeremy and me! Improv games are the best, don't you think?" she whispered the last sentence to Jeremy conspiratorially. "Well, they're not as easy as using a script. They're spontaneous, so it's fun! But scary. But exciting!" She pulled them up to their feet, heading to the middle of the classroom. "You're okay with doing it together, right?"

"Of course," Jeremy said, but their voice cracked. "Let's go."

Well. Failed step one.

Chapter Text

Jeremy sat in the middle of a circle of chairs, Christine miming driving a car beside them. The improv game for today was "Hitchhiker," so Christine and Jeremy were required to make conversation before stopping to pick up another drama student from the imaginary side of the road. Both of them would have to switch to acting like the hitchhiker until the driver made an excuse to leave and the game started over again with their roles switched around.

Christine, for all her love of scripted theater, was a pretty talented improvisor. Jeremy didn't have quite as much stage experience but prided themself on the same.

"I just love the rolling hills of Normandy this time of year," Christine was saying happily with a sigh. Her fake accent was stuffy and posh. "So fine and fair! Don't you agree, Chester?"

Jeremy found themself having to come up with a character voice on the fly and wound up settling for a sort-of-British Keanu Reeves. "It's certainly beautiful, my dear. If only we didn't have to deal with these flocks of seagulls attacking the car."

Christine played along, and the two of them squawked and ducked imaginary bird attacks while their classmates tittered. "Hold on, honey!" Christine said. "The road's getting bumpy! Too many bird bodies!" She and Jeremy both bounced up and down in their seats, making thunking noises. 

Mr. Reyes gestured for them to hurry up and pick up their "passenger," so Jeremy shouted "THUD!" and flung out their arm as though Christine weren't wearing a seatbelt. "Sounded like a huge bird!" they said frantically.

Christine picked up on what they were trying to do and gamely said in a horrified tone, "That was no bird, Chester! That..." She paused dramatically. "Was a human!"

Jeremy mimed flinging open the car door. Mr. Reyes pointed at Chloe, who was reading something on her phone screen. "We'd best pick up this poor injured soul," they said, waving for Chloe to get in the invisible car.

Chloe didn't notice or answer until Mr. Reyes whispered a couple instructions to her. She scoffed and pocketed her phone, standing up and coming to the empty chair beside Jeremy. "So I have to make up a character or whatever?"

Christine wilted beside Jeremy at Chloe's lack of immersion but gamely chimed in with her fake accent, "That's right, hon, sorry we just drove over you with our car. Who are you supposed to be?"

Chloe blew some hair out of her face and took a seat, crossing her legs. "I don't know. What's a funny character?" She tapped her chin, thinking. "Guess I'm some loser who can't keep a boyfriend 'cuz she won't put out."

Some of their classmates laughed meanly at Chloe's line and the air in the room got tenser. Jeremy looked between Christine and Chloe, but neither of them said anything. According to the rules of the game, Jeremy and Christine were supposed to adopt Chloe's new persona and have a conversation. Jeremy changed their fake accent to a Valley girl's. "Guess that, like, makes three of us?" Their mind was whirring, trying to determine the ideal outcome to this botched improv exercise.

"Yeah, I guess, I'll just, like," Chloe said, getting more into the role. Her acting was horrible but the other students' reactions encouraged her to keep going, "go cry about what a prude I am while my exes get wasted at cooler people's parties."

"I don't appreciate that, Chloe," Christine said in a wavering normal voice. Oh shit. If Christine was breaking character, this was bad.

Chloe scoffed, openly texting on her phone. Mr. Reyes didn't scold her.

Jeremy turned to Christine, keeping their voice low and consoling. "Don't listen to her," they said. Christine was a sincere and kind soul, but she was emotionally volatile when she didn't know what she was supposed to say. It was part of her charm but the way she wore her heart on her sleeve made her vulnerable to both bullies and theater critics. She needed some direction from someone who sounded confident. "She doesn't actually know what's going on between us, she's just trying to get a rise out of you. Ignore her and finish up the scene." For good measure, Jeremy put a comforting hand on Christine's thigh.

A chorus of "ooooooh!"s sounded around the three of them. Jeremy realized their misstep and yanked their hand away. Right! Christine wasn't comfortable with touch! A hand on her leg should have been fine, but considering that people were gossiping about her lack of physical intimacy with her ex-boyfriends, it was a hot topic of conversation. Jeremy shouldn't have pushed it.

Christine's face was red and blotchy, her nose scrunched up. Some dumbass in the back of the chair circle yelled, "Now kiss!" and that was apparently too much for Christine.

She stood up, shaking her head, and stumbled. "Excuse me," she said almost too quietly to be heard. "I have to… go to the bathroom. 'Scuse me. Pardon."

Chloe was snickering out loud as though all her suspicions about Christine had been confirmed. Jeremy felt some nauseating mixture of guilt in the pit of their stomach, and they weren't sure if it was cased by embarrassing Christine or from realizing their social misstep a second too late.

Jeremy stood, offering a "Me, too," to a distantly amused Mr. Reyes, who made no move to stop them. Christine hurried out the door, and following, Jeremy paused at the threshold. There were so many conflicting variables to consider here and their social-situational-analysis system had frozen trying to figure out which one to prioritize. Should Jeremy be most concerned about their relationship with Christine? Or with their standing with the popular kids? Should they ignore Christine and focus on identifying the origin of their newly-updated SQUIP program? Or should they pick up where the SQUIP left off, correcting Jeremy's personal habits and managing his anxiety? Should they go find Michael and ask him what to do? Should they talk to their dad about what was going on? "Error. Error," they said, staring down the hallway. "Social situational analysis system is not responding. Force program to close?"

If they were waiting for user input, they'd be waiting for a long time, since there was no distinction between SQUIP and human anymore.

They heard talking behind them and realized with relief that the improv class was continuing on its own. No one was staring. No one had heard them talking to themself. The opportunity was gone to offer a scathing remark at Chloe or to say something chill and flippant to look good in front of the class.

With some of the possible tasks they had in mind unavailable, they were able to unfreeze, shaking their head to clear it from the unpleasant sensation. Christine. Highest priority right now was Christine. She'd been heading to the girls' bathroom when they saw her last, so that's the way they headed, though they knew better than to barge in unannounced.

They knocked on the swinging door, calling, "Christine? Christine! It's just me right now, I only wanna talk!"

Christine answered, voice muffled. "It's empty in here. Come on in."

Jeremy hesitated. The girls' bathroom was forbidden territory. Dare they venture where no man had trodden before? They heard Christine sniffle and their decision was made. They pushed open the door and looked to behold… a regular bathroom, minus the urinals. Wow. Underwhelming. "I can't be in here, Christine," they said in a hushed whisper.

"Then hide in a stall with me," Christine said, pointing at the accessible stall. "You're right. We really need to talk."

Jeremy tried to come up with a good reason not to obey but none came to mind. They followed Christine into the stall and locked it behind them. A thrill of anticipation inadvertently shot through their body, and they had a moment of deja vu. Either it was a glitch in the matrix, or they'd definitely fantasized about this exact scenario with Christine before... though they were hard-pressed to remember any fantasy when Christine had been on the verge of tears.

Jeremy quickly psyched themself up for the conversation ahead. Something about this situation felt similar to their fight with Rich earlier, but the vibe was different. Around Rich, they felt disdainful and disgusted with his obvious lack of discipline. With Christine, they felt protective. Like they needed to be as supportive as possible and say things that felt good to hear. All for the same end goal, of course, which was to adjust Rich and Christine's behavioral outputs. Was that a violation of free will? they wondered. Or was it just plain old-fashioned manipulation? They had a sinking feeling that Michael wouldn't approve either way, and for some reason Michael's approval was the cornerstone of their existence. How annoying.

Christine had perched on the closed toilet seat, her arms wrapped around herself as she gnawed on her lip. Jeremy wanted to hug her but wasn't sure they were allowed.

"I'm sorry," they offered, sitting at the opposite edge of the stall and sliding down to the dirty tile floor. The stall was still cramped, offering no illusion of personal space between them. They could practically smell Christine's shampoo.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Christine said immediately. "That was all Chloe."

"No, I should have recognized the situation," they responded glumly. "I wasn't trying to encourage her, but I did anyway. And I shouldn't have touched your leg." Sounding honest was the best policy right now, they decided. It just so happened that, in this case, the best way to sound sincere was to actually be sincere.

"They've all been saying the same thing lately," Christine said. She was talking to Jeremy but it seemed more like she was mumbling to her sneakers. "This is just the first time anyone's said it to my face."

Jeremy shook their head. "I had no idea."

"Well, how could you?" Christine looked up. "I wanted to talk to you about it at lunch, before something like this happened. I figured you heard the rumors and didn't want to be seen with me anymore."

Jeremy leaned over, reaching for her hand. She was feeling self-conscious right now and needed validation. "I'd never think that, Christine."

"It was still a jerk move." Jeremy froze. What was with Christine and her constant refusal to follow the conversational script that most humans would? "I needed you and you weren't there! I know you wanted to take it slow but apparently we broke up?" Christine was talking faster and faster. She'd been holding this in and now it was spilling out. "I heard Jenna tell Brooke that we split up and I told her she had the story wrong, but now I guess she was right after all! Do you know what it feels like for Jenna to know my relationship status before I do? It sucks! I thought this was all a big misunderstanding, I mean, oh Jeremy seemed so sweet and understanding when I talked to him last, but then I text you and you ignore me and I try to sit with you at lunch and you pretend I don't exist and I thought you were done with all this high-and-mighty too-cool-for-you junk!"

Oh. Whoops. They were vaguely aware of Christine having texted them, but on Michael's orders, they were avoiding interaction with other people. They hadn't even read the messages. Only one is mine. Only one is mine. They hunched over on the floor, tucking their hands underneath their arms to look nonthreatening and nervous. "You're right. I'm sorry. I've been going through a lot this week."

Christine sighed. "I could have helped you through it," she said. Jeremy couldn't tell if she was being supportive or critical.

They frowned. "Not this."

Christine sniffed, wiping at her eyes. She wasn't actually crying but she'd been on the verge of tears, and she seemed to be trying to make herself more presentable to go back to class. "Can you just… clear up what we are right now? Are we together like you said we'd be? Did we actually break up? It's fine either way, but being the only one not to know is twisting me in knots."

"I'm sorry, Christine," they said gently. "I still care about you, but I'm not the same person who asked you out in the first place." Understatement of the century.

Christine laughed. It wasn't a happy sound, not quite, but she was trying to bounce back to her normal cheer. "You think I am? I'm a new person every class period. Heck, ten minutes ago I was a rich tourist running over pedestrians in Normandy."

They shared a quiet laugh. "It's more than that," Jeremy said. They were torn-they wanted to keep the possibility of dating Christine open, but they didn't want to actually spend time with her until they figured out what had happened to them and whether it was permanent. For whatever reason, they kept thinking of Michael. He would probably be judging Jeremy for keeping Christine on the hook like this, so they steeled their resolve. "It's not a good idea for us to date right now," they said quietly.

Christine let out a breath. "Yeah, I thought you'd say that."

"You did?!" Jeremy said. Then they hurried to clarify, "It's not because of what they're saying about you not getting physical. I really do have something big happening right now and I don't want to get you involved."

"We don't have to be dating for us to be close," Christine said, tucking her knees up to her chin. Jeremy thought they got a flash of her panties before they realized she was wearing a skort, and they bit their lip and adjusted their own blood flow so nothing would be noticable. "Just tell me what you're thinking."

They really didn't want to do that. "No. I mean! No, you first."

Christine looked disappointed in them but didn't push it. "Well," she said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a creased paper. "I was planning to ask you to go to this with me tonight. It wouldn't be a date, I guess, but I still want you to come." She passed the paper over and Jeremy unfolded it.

"ANTI-BULLYING ART EXPO," they read aloud from the page. "Prevent bullying and harassment in our local schools. FREE refreshments provided."

"Things have gotten really bad at this school lately," she said. "What Chloe just said is only one example. I guess it's a nationwide issue. And that's probably caused by something bigger than the scope of one high school's policies could change," she said with a huff. Jeremy recognized Christine's "I'm-about-to-go-on-a-rant" face easily. Oh, no. Their forecast predicted a hundred percent chance of unrestrained teenage human opinions pouring out like a tidal wave.

"Sure, kids can become bullies based on their own personal issues like low empathy or not having good role models or as a reaction against something bad going on in their life. But I really think the school environment plays just as big a part as the individual, don't you?" She didn't give Jeremy a chance to answer. "What kind of attitudes are we encouraging socially? And what behavior do the teachers let slide? Or maybe more important than that, who gets a free pass to do and say whatever they want and who gets called out on it? Like, which people do we all nod along and agree with? Even outside of school! It seems like there are certain people who get to say, 'this is acceptable' or 'point and laugh at this' and we all just take their word for it implicitly! I think that betrays a lack of critical thinking skills."

Jeremy started to say something regrettable about the SQUIP and how it could fix interpersonal communication problems forever, but Christine kept chattering as though the act was clearing her head. "But people are social animals, I mean, you know that, Jeremy. We've been following the crowd as long as there's been a crowd to follow. So bullying has been a problem forever, probably. It seems like it's so much worse now! Is it just because we're usually nicer to each other in elementary school and this is the only time we've ever been in high school so we have no point of comparison?" She waved her hand in a circle to get out some of the nervous energy she was building up. Jeremy didn't have the processing capacity to truly follow everything she'd been saying, so they mostly concentrated on thinking about anything and everything in the world besides Christine's panties as she continued.

"Adults are saying this is a big problem now too, though! Maybe there's a bias there? Like, bullying was underreported because there weren't many assets for bullying victims until recently? At the same time, there's such a toxic climate just in the last few years around diversity especially, and sexuality and gender identification and race and class and all the other stuff that coincidentally a lot of bullying victims get targeted for! So maybe all the nasty stuff we see in high school bullying is just a reflection of the social issues facing our culture as a whole?

"Anyway," she said, sucking in air and pointing to the flier, "they're holding these at the other high school, like a monthly meeting. I've got a couple friends who go and they've just been raving about it. They've got a program guaranteed to reduce bullying by eighty percent in a matter of weeks with the power of art and I hear they're gonna try it at our school. I thought we could get a sneak peek."

"Christine," Jeremy said, finally able to interject.

She heard the "no" in their tone and deflated, plucking the paper out of their hand. "Oh. Yeah. All right, that's fine. I don't mind going stag." The curtness of her answer made Jeremy flinch.

Jeremy couldn't handle this properly! They'd only had, well, whatever SQUIP-and-human nonsense was going on with them right now for less than two days. "Evaluating relationship parameters," they said, sucking air in through their teeth. What was the correct way to respond to Christine? "Analyzing compatibility of user goals. Processing. Please wait."

"What?" Jeremy jerked their head up to realize that Christine was clutching the lid of the toilet between her legs and leaning forward. She'd heard that. She'd heard that! Jeremy mouthed "only one is mine" a few times to himself silently, but Christine was noticing that too and was looking at them with a mix of suspicion and concern. Jeremy pushed themself up against the wall, clamoring out of the stall. "I have to go," they said urgently.

"You can tell me about it!" Christine burst out. "If you're going through a SQUIP relapse or something, I'm one of the only people in the school who'll understand! I don't get why you're avoiding-"

It didn't matter what else she said, because Jeremy had already squirmed beneath the bathroom stall and out the door. Their heart rate was raising rapidly and their perspiration was increasing, which was both unpleasant and unproductive. They closed their eyes, checking and regulating their cortisol production-

"Jeremy!" they heard. They almost made a break for it out of sheer surprise until they registered that the person calling their name was Michael. Jeremy felt a relieved grin appear on their face until they realized that Michael was dragging a second person behind him. A person who was a pure five-feet-five-inches of pissed-off. Their grin dropped. "What were you doing in the girls' bathroom?" Michael continued with a laugh.

Jeremy started to answer before Rich cut them off. "Who cares? We've gotta go."

"Are we running from someone?" Jeremy asked hesitantly, joining up with the two boys and resisting the urge to stick their hands in their pockets to hide the excess sweat. It wouldn't work and the gesture would make them look weak in front of Rich.

"No, we just figure this was more important than school," Michael said, taking his phone out and scrolling through some texts. They all headed toward the school theater, whose outside exit was notoriously hard to spot. It was an open secret that kids used it to sneak in and out of school grounds.

"We're ditching?" Jeremy said.

"Wait, what?" Rich said with an equal amount of disbelief. "We can't skip school! That'd ruin my perfect attendance!"

Jeremy gave him the side-eye, mentally reviewing Rich's school attendance records. "You don't have-"

Rich interrupted. "That's the joke, dumbass."

"Actually," Michael said, holding up a finger as the three of them poured through the exit door. "Jeremy, all that stalker info you've got on Rich? That's what we need to talk to you about."

"Couldn't it wait until after school?" Jeremy complained. "Something happened with Christine-"

"Put aside your straight boy problems for half a minute," Rich said dismissively. Jeremy's eye twitched at the lisp. Rich was now saying "straight boy" with just as much disrespect as he'd once been trained to say "gay" or "homo," which Jeremy thought was a peculiar development. "This is important."

Michael looked at Jeremy, then at a bulgy mass he had in his hoodie pocket. He reached into it meaningfully, drawing out the empty container of Mountain Dew Red. "And we might not have much time."

Chapter Text

Jeremy, Rich, and Michael walked in a cluster on the sidewalk outside their school, deep in discussion as their breath rose in wet clouds around them. Rich and Michael had the good sense to have brought their coats. Jeremy didn't need one.

"We were talking about your texts," Michael said, holding up his phone screen. "And Rich was telling me what you said in class. Which was not okay, Jeremy, by the way, what the hell made you think it was remotely okay to tell Rich to kill himself?"

"It's what I was programmed to say!" Jeremy defended themself.

Rich shot them a frown and Michael said, "Oh you are not trying to pull some predestination fate-determines-your-life BS on me right now."

"I'm being literal!" Jeremy threw their hands up in frustration. "You're right, I can access all this information about Rich, but all the source data's been corrupted. I can't even remember having a conversation with the guy before today beyond 'yeah, my dad drinks too'."

"The guy's right here," Rich chimed in, unhappy to be ignored. "Are you trying to say you spewed all that personal shit to me in the middle of class and you don't even have beef?"

Jeremy shrugged. "If I gave Rich the benefit of the doubt, I would say I thought we were enemies due to my contacts list database being outdated. Not all the information is still accurate-for instance, I didn't expect him to still have that," Jeremy scoffed, trying to find the appropriate words, "infantile lisp."

Rich and Michael looked at each other, Rich raising his brows meaningfully. Whatever they were communicating between themselves went over Jeremy's head. Rich didn't react outwardly like Jeremy had expected from trying to rile him up.

Michael took pity on Jeremy's confusion, though he sounded disappointed. "You've been talking like Rich's SQUIP used to," he explained. "Down to the exact word choice. We're pretty sure it's not a coincidence."

"But I wasn't Rich's SQUIP," Jeremy retorted, their eyebrows pinching together. "I was Jeremy's SQUIP." They didn't notice their verbal slip at first, but Rich and Michael both jerked to a halt on the sidewalk. Jeremy nearly tripped, turning to face them. "I'm Jeremy!" they corrected themself.

"Jesus fuck," Rich said.

"If you have to swear, swear with something more hip than 'Jesus, and for fuck's sake avoid the s's!'" Jeremy snapped.

Rich gave Michael a helpless shrug, not responding to the taunt. "It's all over. Whatever this thing is, it's not Heere anymore."

Michael shook his head. "There's more to it than that! When you weren't around, he was being cooperative. He wants this to go away as much as we do." He pulled up the symptoms list Google doc on his phone, passing it to Rich. "I told you, he was willing to drink the fake Mountain Dew Red."

"Unless he knew it was fake all along," Rich said, thumbing the page up and down.

"Do we have to have Rich here for this conversation?" Jeremy said in a strangled tone. They weren't enjoying enjoying getting judged by both of their worst enemies at the same time.

Rich and Michael both answered with a flat "yes." Michael eyeballed Jeremy. "We haven't set any ground rules besides 'don't be an evil robot' and you've already broken that one, like, a hundred times. But just for the record, here's another rule: you gotta be nice to Rich."

Jeremy was astonished. "Why?"

"Because he's our friend? Because he's trying to help us figure out what's going on? Because your weird grudge turned into a huge scene in the middle of class when you're supposed to be on the downlow? Because you owe him for talking to him a prick? Because it's the decent thing to do? Because I said so? Take your pick."

"Anyway," Rich interjected, handing the phone back to Michael. "Michael showed me the texts you guys wrote about everyone's blood types. By the way, I'm calling it, vampire apocalypse fantasies are officially the weirdest way to flirt."

Jeremy and Michael both made noises of protest. Jeremy felt their face heating up. "We were not-" Michael started while Jeremy said, "My database on flirting methods-"

Rich kept talking over them. "But check it. Everyone whose blood types you know-you, me, Christine, Jenna, Chloe, Jake, Brooke, and Reyes-they've all got one thing in common."

Jeremy stuffed down their embarrassment long enough to realize, "They were all SQUIPped during the school play."

"Not just SQUIPped," Michael said, continuing Rich's thought. "Specifically, they were the other SQUIPs that you connected to when you were controlling Jeremy."

"So you think I retained some of that information from when we were all part of the same social network." Jeremy nodded. "That's a pretty sound theory, and it would explain why my knowledge of Rich is potentially out of date."

"And we think that maybe," Michael said, drumming his fingers against his forearms, "that's why you're slightly less of a controlling dickhead around me than around Rich. Because all the SQUIPs were acting like facets of the same hive mind. You know everyone's secrets and triggers and how to control them best, except obviously mine."

Jeremy checked on what they knew about their peers. It all lined up. "I was thinking something along those lines earlier," they admitted. "When I was talking to Christine. She wastes so much energy overthinking everything. She needs somebody to give her a script to follow and tell her what to do, so I was trying to do that for her while still coming across as supportive. I wasn't violating free will, but I was feeling…" They took in a breath, not wanting to say this in front of Rich. "I was feeling guilty because I knew you wouldn't approve."

"That's new for a SQUIP," Rich said. "They're know-it-alls, programmed to predict the correct course of action in any situation. They don't feel guilty. Though I'm still putting my money on this best-friend act all being for show."

"If I were acting," Jeremy said icily. "I'd be doing such a good job of it that you wouldn't have questioned in the first place."

"So you're saying you're a shitty friend on purpose."

"Guys!" Michael said to shut them up. "Rich, tell Jeremy what you thought about the Mountain Dew Red." He shook the empty bottle for emphasis.

Rich nodded with a grunt. "Heere, you remember on Saturday, you were walking to the mall alone? I honked at you?"

"Yeah," Jeremy said. "I was pretty out of it."

"You're telling me. When I drove back that way, you were walking away from the mall, but you were freaking out. Like, screaming in broad daylight like a complete fucking SQUIP noob."

That sounded familiar. They remembered there being an argument between Jeremy and the SQUIP at some point, and other people had mentioned the incident to them since. "You were there for that?"

Rich continued, "Michael said you had gone and bought a thing of Mountain Dew Red at the mall. Had you drunk it yet?"

"I brought it home and drank it there," Jeremy said. "I didn't want to pass out on the street. When I woke up, I was like… whatever I am right now."

"Yeah," Rich said. "I don't know what your mall guy sold you, but it definitely wasn't Mountain Dew Red."

Jeremy's jaw dropped. "The SQUIP was right," they said quietly. It was obvious in retrospect. Why hadn't they realized?

"What?" Michael said.

"The SQUIP was right!" Jeremy shouted. Rich swore in surprise at the noise. "I-It noticed the color was off and tried to convince me-I mean, Jeremy-that it wasn't safe, but I was determined to get rid of it-" Michael put his hand on their shoulder, a stabilizing presence. Jeremy lowered their voice. "So what did I drink?"

"Shit, that's the question, huh?" Rich said. He sounded oddly somber.

"Jeremy, remember what you told me when you first woke up?" Michael said. "About how the soda tasted? You said it had traces of some chemical."

"Sodium citrate," Jeremy said, making a face at the memory.

"Yeah, that. Rich and I were thinking we should figure out what exactly was in that bottle. Like, send it to a lab or something. Then I realized we basically have free lab tech right here."

"I can taste the soda and tell you its chemical composition, you mean," Jeremy said, reaching for the empty bottle. It still had a few drops clinging to the inside surface. "Reverse-engineer it."

"Or at least figure out enough of the ingredients to look it up," Michael said. "It's a long shot, but they have the ingredients list for all sorts of discontinued sodas on the wiki page."

"There's a wiki page for discontinued pop?" Rich said. Michael shot him a disdainful look that said You're a plebian, Rich.

Jeremy checked to make sure they had a wifi connection so they could upload any data. "It's worth a try. I'm good to do it right now, right? We don't need to get any other materials?"

Rich started a drumroll by slapping the tops of his thighs and scatting in singsong, "Dah dadah dah dadah dah dadah dah, hurry up."

Jeremy unscrewed the bottle and sniffed it, then slowly extended their tongue to get the tiniest lick of pinkish soda possible. Michael snickered at them, sticking his tongue out with a "blep" mockingly, but all Jeremy said was "analyzing" (or, since their tongue was still out, "analything"). They closed the bottle, swishing the drop of mystery substance around in their mouth. "Analysis complete," they announced. "Processing results. Please wait."

Both boys leaned forward expectantly, Michael in fascination and Rich in horror.

"Well," Jeremy said. "It's soda."

Michael's shoulders slumped and Rich groaned. "That's it? I could have done that myself!" Michael said.

Jeremy smirked, crossing their arms. "Check your Google docs."

Michael woke up his phone, finding an alert that Jeremy was inviting him to edit Mystery Soda Results . docx. "Oh," he muttered.

"That was fast," Rich said, looking over Michael's shoulder to scan through a huge chunk of text, listing ingredients that didn't sound entirely safe to drink.

"Carbonatedwater20%highfructosecornsyrup18.3%concentratedorangejuice16%-Couldn't you have made this more legible, Jeremy?"

"I typed it up in a third of a second! Most people would be impressed!"

"Ugh." Michael shook his head. "Well, this is definitely Mountain Dew. Some kind of Mountain Dew. Let me check those ingredients against the wiki, hold on." Michael slipped his headphones on, effectively leaving Rich and Jeremy alone.

Jeremy spent a few seconds looking into possible futures of interacting with Rich and made a face. Since Michael had told them to be nice and for some undetermined reason Jeremy was compelled to keep their relationship with Michael running as optimally as possible, that meant they couldn't taunt Rich like they had earlier in class. They or Rich would have to say something before Michael finished his wiki research, so staying silent wasn't an ideal option. But any attempt at friendliness with Rich would be rejected out of hand. Jeremy gave up and picked one of the least-negative possible outcomes, saying, "I apologize for what I said in study hall."

"I don't want to hear it," Rich said immediately with a scowl. "I know you're not actually sorry, so just save your breath."

Ugh. What a petulant brat. "All right," Jeremy said, expression getting tighter. "Muting."

"...Did you actually mute yourself?" Rich said after a second. Jeremy looked at him with a no duh expression. In practice, "muting" themself wasn't any different from a human just choosing not to speak, but they weren't about to say so. Rich scoffed. "It's about time," he said.

Another bout of silence stretched between them as Michael obliviously bopped his head and fiddled with his phone.

"I'm trying to help you 'cuz Michael thinks Jeremy's still in you somewhere," Rich said suddenly, as if Jeremy cared. "And I owe Jeremy. I'm the one who sold him on the evil tic-tacs in the first place. I mean, I cornered him in the bathroom and gave him the full infomercial treatment for chrissake. My SQUIP was the one saying most of it, but I wasn't fighting it like I should have been. I keep fucking doing this!" Rich shouted the last sentence, making Jeremy jump and actually look at him, wide-eyed. "I get all fucking self-destructive, because I'm the problem, right? Solution's obvious then: I just gotta get rid of me. But whenever I do shit to myself, someone else always gets in the way and then they get hurt too! Like, I'm so obsessed with setting myself on fire, I forget there's other people in the house!"

Rich dug his nails into his arms, readjusting his hands a few times to account for the scar tissue. "That's exactly what I did to Heere. I dragged him into this, made SQUIPs sound like the solutions to every fucking problem I knew he had. As if I'd ever tried to improve his life." Rich spat on the ground, and his demeanor sobered up. "Michael thinks you can still be saved, but after what I've heard from you today? I don't think so. You're nothing but a SQUIP in Jeremy's body. I don't know what the hell's going on with you, what kind of muscle memory of Jeremy's you're using to act like him sometimes, but he's not gonna have a miracle recovery. The best we can do is minimize the damage. Figure out what exactly you did on Saturday and keep it from happening to anyone else." Rich went quiet again before adding, "Jeremy Heere's dead and I killed him. That's bad enough. The last thing he deserves is you mucking up his memory by walking around in his stolen body pretending to be him."

Rich was quiet again, waiting for a response, before snorting and saying, "Unmute" as sarcastically as possible. He thought Jeremy was being petty about staying "muted" (and he was right).

"For one thing," Jeremy started, "Your assessment is astonishingly incorr-"

"Here!" Michael exclaimed, pulling off his headphones. Jeremy snapped their head toward Michael on reflex. "I'm pretty sure I know what you drank."

"Yeah?" Rich and Jeremy said, their voices overlapping. They glared at each other.

"Okay, first off, disclaimer, a bunch of different sodas use the same ingredients just in different ratios. But based on that list, Jeremy, that stuff you drank had Mountain Dew Red in it."

"So it should have shut off the SQUIP," Rich said.

"Yeah, but get this! There was also sodium citrate in that bottle. And sodium citrate is in tons of soda, but not in Mountain Dew Red."

Rich said, "So it was cut with something."

Jeremy groaned, looking skyward. "That's why the soda was flat and pinkish. Jeremy thought it was only due to being decades out of date, but it had been opened and mixed with something! The guy at Spencer's made a big deal out of it being his last bottle since demand was so high."

"What do you mean, 'demand was so high'?" Rich said.

"A bunch of high schoolers are buying it up," Jeremy said, waving their hand.

"That's true," Michael added. "He's been bitching to me about how it's so hard to get lately. It was only made for a one-year run in the 80s, after all."

"Oh, fuck," Rich said in a small voice.

"What else was in the bottle, though?" Jeremy said to Michael. They stopped. Occam's razor. The simplest solution was usually the most correct. If someone was going to mix another soda with Mountain Dew Red and sell it, what would be cheap and on hand and not noticeably impact the taste? "Mountain Dew," they answered their own question. "I drank Mountain Dew Red mixed with regular Mountain Dew! That's why my OS has been acting so buggy!"

Michael nodded grimly. "Exactly. It sounds like a sci-fi philosophy koan. What happens when you turn off a SQUIP at the same time that you turn it on?"

Jeremy looked down at themself. "And I'm stuck still figuring that out."

Rich walked between and ahead of them, grabbing each of their hands and tugging them forward jarringly. Jeremy thought their shoulder almost dislocated with the force. "We're heading to the mall," he said ahead of their protests. "Gotta find your dealer."

"Good idea," said Michael, trying to wriggle his hand free. "We gotta have Jeremy drink some real Mountain Dew Red. That should change him back, right?"

He looked to Jeremy for confirmation. "Probably?" Jeremy said weakly. They tried to look reassuring but it felt like a lie.

"Doubt it," Rich answered. "But it doesn't matter. He's got a lot to answer for." He looked back at them, determined. "Someone's been buying up the only SQUIP-killer in town and we're gonna find out why."

Chapter Text

"Ditching school to go to the mall with a couple of teenage delinquents," Michael groaned, burying his face deep into his hoodie to keep out the chill. "Never thought I'd see the day. What would my moms think?"

"You're a stoner, Michael," Jeremy said flatly.

"You literally just pirated a game with me during second period," Rich added from five paces ahead of them. Rich was ansty and kept walking ahead of the other two, then pausing to let them catch up. Jeremy didn't know what his hurry was. The mall didn't close until 9.

"And I blame the two of you for being bad influences," Michael said primly.

"Yeah, like that could convince a judge," Rich said. "Shut up now. You got breath to joke, then you got breath to run."

"We don't even know for sure that the soda supplier guy is working right now," Jeremy said disagreeably. "Maybe his shift doesn't start until after school."

"Nah, Spencer always does the mid shifts except for Wednesday and Sunday."

"Hold on." Jeremy turned his head to Michael with a grin. "Your Spencer's hookup is named Spencer?"

"Bet he's never heard that one before," Rich muttered.

"Well, no shit," Michael said. "That's why it's called Spencer's."

"Michael," Rich said in disbelief. "Your dumb gay ass-"

"It's a national chain, dude," Jeremy said. The banter they were slipping into felt familiar and easy, but it left an annoying itching feeling somewhere at the top of their brain. Only one is mine. Only one is mine.

As Rich jokingly berated Michael, they stared at their feet, trying to distract themself from the unpleasant sensation by pacing their steps to avoid the cracks every single time. By the time they calculated the ideal number of steps to take per sidewalk square (1.837 steps), the mall was in sight, the feeling was forgotten, and Michael was watching them warily after they'd gone silent. With a quick check at alternate futures for the best possible response, Jeremy decided to flip Michael off for staring. Michael chuckled quietly and didn't push it.

"So, what's our fuckin' strategy?" Rich said, spreading his arms walking backwards so he could face the two of them. "I don't want to go in blind."

"You wanted to figure out where Spencer was getting his Mountain Dew Red from, right? So we can go straight to the source?" Michael said. "I'm pretty sure he's part of some soda forums and he's friends with one of the mods on r/soda."

"Nope. That's not top priority." Rich made a cutting motion with his hand. "Our friend Spencer said a bunch of high schoolers were buying up Mountain Dew Red and that's why there's a shortage." His eyes flicked over to Jeremy's uncomfortably, and he seemed to reevaluate what he was saying. Then he huffed. "I don't wanna talk about this in front of Mr. Roboto, but I guess it's all common sense shit. But Heere, if you're a double agent and I find out you've been telling your computer buddies what we're up to, I swear to God I'm gonna fry your circuits until you don't know pi from pastries."

"Pi puns don't work as well out loud," Jeremy said with a twist of their lips. Rich was heading backwards towards a pavement crack and it didn't take a supercomputer in their brain to know the future (though it helped). "Just get to the point."

"Well, we gotta find out who's been buying the Red, right?" Rich backed up as he talked until he tripped over the crack. Jeremy burst out laughing. "Ugh! Shut up!" Rich snapped.

"Rich is trying to help us," Michael chided.

"He got rid of the thing programmed to watch his back for him," Jeremy pointed out. "He should get used to looking out for number one."

"You got rid of the SQUIP, Jeremy!" Michael said, frustrated. "You made Christine drink the Mountain Dew Red. You killed it, not Rich, so stop taking it out on him!"

That made Jeremy shut up. The memory of Jeremy telling Christine to drink those last few drops of soda was hazy and unclear, like they had watched it through a dozen different eyes. They grimaced, trying to process the idea. It felt unpleasant to think about. "I'm sorry," they said eventually, subdued. "You're right, Michael. Sorry, Rich." The apology was difficult to say but felt right after they said it.

Rich was less than impressed. "Sorry for laughing at me or sorry for killing my SQUIP?"

Jeremy took the question seriously. They didn't know. They'd hurt Rich by shutting down his SQUIP, but in terms of their new "free will" protocol, it had been the right thing to do in the moment. Rich's SQUIP was unquestioningly controlling Rich to the point of detriment and wasn't likely to stop anytime soon without intervention. But that didn't mean it had to be shut down permanently. With a few tweaks and a systems update, it could become the miracle worker it was advertised to be. Rich didn't need to have been downgraded into an analog human with nothing but an obsolete OS and a fuck-ton of trauma from losing his SQUIP. "Yes," they said honestly in a way that did little to answer Rich's question.

"Thought so."

"So what were you saying about the buyers?" Michael said hastily, trying to prevent any more bickering.

"Right!" Rich picked back up the conversational rhythm as they walked. "Way I see it, there's only two groups of people who would be collecting Mountain Dew Red."

"Hardcore retro soda nerds?" Michael said.

Rich rolled his eyes. "Two groups of people and Michael." Jeremy snorted. Rich kept going, "We're not the only ones in New Jersey who got SQUIPped. There's no question that those things are still out there wrecking people's lives. And if we were able to figure out that Mountain Dew Red is the answer, then those other SQUIPtims probably have, too."

"SQUIPtims?" Jeremy said, mouth puckering in distaste.

"'SQUIP' plus 'victims,'" Michael said. "Keep up."

"So behind door number one," Rich said, "We have all these friends of people who got SQUIPped who are buying up Mountain Dew Red to make their friends drink. Problem took care of itself, the day is saved, yadda yadda yadda, as long as there was enough Red in New Jersey to go around. But behind door number two, the SQUIPtims themselves are the buyers."

No one with a SQUIP would willingly drink Mountain Dew Red unless some other programming took precedence like it had in Christine's case. It wouldn't happen often enough to make Rich so worked up about the idea. "You think they're buying it and dumping it," Jeremy said, putting a hand to their chin before dropping it. They shouldn't touch their face; that caused acne. "That's a good idea and it's a possibility, but I for one wasn't worried about Mountain Dew Red as soon as I got Michael out of Jeremy's life. It was discontinued ages ago, after all. It's already such a limited access product that the problem was essentially taken care of already."

Michael and Rich were both staring at Jeremy again. They went over what they'd just said. Oh, shit. Talking about the optic nerve blocking was still a sore spot for Michael. They had the urge to stammer, which they forced down and replaced with a quiet "Fuck, Michael. I won't mention that again."

"No, it's fine," Michael said, though he didn't sound like it was fine. "It's just getting hard to parse when your personality's switching. I keep thinking you're Jeremy until you say something like that."

"I told you, I'm not switching," Jeremy said, looking back down at the sidewalk and taking .837 of a step. "This whole time, it's just been me. Rich, how did you plan on getting Spencer to tell us about his buyers?" they said quickly.

"I can be persuasive," Rich said, cracking his knuckles.

Jeremy rolled their eyes. "Oh, please."

"Don't beat up Spencer," Michael said as they walked into the mall entrance. It was pretty deserted-understandable given that it was an early weekday afternoon. "He's a bro! We're cool! I'm sure he'll be more than willing to have a chat with his best customer."

"Speaking of which," Jeremy said. "He has some drinks for you to pick up. You could pretend we're here to buy those?"

"Holy shit!" Michael said excitedly. "My original-run Orbitz are in? And you didn't tell me sooner?"

"Last time we were here, we were preoccupied," Jeremy said.

Michael gave a sheepish "oh, yeah" in response.

"We?" Rich repeated.

"Yeah. Jeremy and his SQUIP." Jeremy waved their hand. "When we were still separate."

Michael was on his phone, tapping, and Jeremy could feel the little vibrating buzz of electrical charge as human fingers became a conduit between brain and phone screen.

11. Jeremy and the SQUIP have separate memories from before he drank the Mountain Dew mix. Jeremy usually says "I" but he talks about the SQUIP and Jeremy as separate people in his memories.

Jeremy frowned. I can read it when you're talking about me, they added to the document.

Michael deleted it, writing: New rule: don't creep on my cyberspace without permission before deleting that, too, to keep the document looking clean.

"I don't have to follow your rules," Jeremy said out loud. "You're not my user or my SQUIP."

"You don't," Michael agreed. "But I am your best friend. Didn't they teach you in health class? Boundaries are key to any healthy relationship."

"Sounds gay," Rich said from ahead of them. "Or bi. Or pan! Love is a rainbow."

"What the hell," Michael said.

Jeremy grimaced, gritting their teeth. "But all your rules are specifically getting in the way of the tasks in my taskbar," they said, pointing at their head. "And I still feel like I have to do what you say! I don't understand!"

Michael looked over Jeremy, reaching to take their hand before dropping the gesture. "Jeremy and I l-care about each other," he said cautiously. "And when you care about someone, sometimes you have to trust their judgment. You know these rules are making things better for you and me… not to mention that they're the base standards of general human decency."

"Then it should go both ways!" Jeremy said, pouting. "The SQUIP was created to make and enforce rules to improve their user's lives. I could point out so many behavioral improvements for you off the top of my head! Fix your posture, take off the headphones so you look more approachable, wear something more form-fitting so you can get comfortable and look confident instead of hunching over in a huge hoodie, make eye contact more often, choose your words carefully, listen to some musicians that are actually popular nowadays," they listed. "Cultivate interests your peers care about, make an effort to speak to someone other than me in school-and that's just you. Everyone in school could benefit from fixing flaws like the ones I was programmed to find!"

"And once you learn to respect people and their individual worth and sense of self, maybe I'd listen to those suggestions!" Michael sighed. "These are only temporary, okay? Until we get you back to being Jeremy 1.0. But in the meantime, maybe we won't call them rules. Like, as much as I'd like to send the SQUIP to robot hell and make it sing terrible musical numbers 'til the end of time, I'm not gonna damn you for a slip-up. You're not sinning if you break one of my rules. They're just, what-standards? For how other people would expect you to treat them? You look like you're all confused when someone gets pissed off at you for acting like a robot douche. I'm giving you advice on not being douchey. Follow it or not, it's your choice."

Jeremy walked alongside Michael quietly as they passed the Payless. Rich was still slightly ahead of them, apparently trying not to get involved in the conversation, or maybe just eager to get to Spencer's.

"But if I slip up, you get mad at me," Jeremy said.

Michael thumped them on the back. "That, my friend, is called a consequence. Most toddlers get a grasp on it pretty early."

"Most toddlers interact with more than one user for their entire existence," Jeremy grumbled.

"You said you're Jeremy and the SQUIP," Michael said. "Which means that somewhere in your circuits, you remember being a human with a shred of decency . Try to find that feeling. Draw it out. Embrace it."

"Caress it," Rich said from ahead of them. "Whisper dirty talk to it. Fuck it into the mattress."

"Human instinct is the source of every bad habit they have," Jeremy protested weakly. Emotional instinct was always wrong. That was something they had at some point drilled into their brain.

"And every good one," Michael said. "C'mon, Jeremy. You don't gotta argue with me just to prove you're metal."

Rich laughed harshly. "Prove your mettle! Ha! Good one, Mell."

"I thought so," Michael said. "Oh! There he is!" Michael started waving, and sure enough, they had arrived at Spencer's.

Spencer-the-guy was reprogramming a digital display at the store front. He turned around at Michael's voice. "Well, well, there's my favorite customer after all. Did this guy tell you I got your Orbitz in?" He looked better today than Jeremy remembered him. He had on a Rick and Morty t-shirt, but with a nice unbuttoned top and a pair of slacks, like some hybrid of nerd and hipster that came across as trendy but put-together. His hair no longer stuck up in all directions; there was gel in it instead of sweat and grease. Talk about a glo-up. If he claimed on the spot to be Spencer McSpencer, the 20-something millionaire owner of Spencer's Gifts who sometimes went undercover as an employee in his own mall chain, Jeremy would have believed it.

Rich stopped in his tracks, not going in the store.

"Hell yeah," Michael said eagerly. Jeremy wasn't sure he remembered that this was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission and not a soda-buying trip.

"How was the Dew?" Spencer said to Jeremy. "It tastes like shit from what I heard. Must be why they stopped selling them."

Jeremy opened their mouth to respond with an accusation about Spencer cutting the Dew, but Rich was making a cutting motion across his throat. "Not great. I couldn't finish the stuff," they said lamely.

Spencer laughed, smooth and practiced, like a movie star's laugh. "I'd just dump it if I were you. Wash out the bottle and keep it as a collector's item."

"We actually had some questions about that," Michael said, following Spencer to the counter and getting some cash from his wallet. Rich was still frantically trying to get Michael to turn around, but for whatever reason, he was doing it silently and without entering the store. Jeremy didn't take long to choose to walk inside with Michael, though they tugged on his hoodie sleeves to no avail as Michael talked. "You said it was the last bottle you had on you?"

"Last bottle, period," Spencer said. "People were snapping them up like crazy for a while." His eyes darted to the side and he added, "Trends like that come and go, though! Remember silly bandz? Hah, crazy. Anyway, I'm all out and they're not making any more."

"Really? There aren't any around online?" Michael leaned on the counter flirtatiously as Spencer went to the back room and came out with bottle of cloudy liquid with orangey and greyish beads floating inside. "Not even for the best friend of one of the soda subreddit mods? I find that hard to believe."

Jeremy hadn't seen Michael turn on the charm like this before. They cleared their throat, looking back to Rich, who was at this point openly making wild 'move move move!' gestures with his arms.

Spencer smiled. "Nah, I'm afraid not. But come on, classic Mountain Dew is better. You're not missing out."

"Pay the nice man, Michael," Jeremy said tightly. They weren't sure what Rich was getting so worked up about but his reaction gave the situation an air of danger it shouldn't have had.

"Oh, yeah," Michael said, holding up the cash. "What's the damage?"

"Twenty-five." Spencer held out the soda, then stopped. "Or, hey, how about I use my employee discount? Just today, it's on the house."

"Employee discount!" Michael snickered. Jeremy felt sick. "Your business has gone legit, huh?"

"Oh yeah, we're expanding all over the country," Spencer joked back as Michael took the drink.

Jeremy kept tugging on Michael's sleeve, making jerking motions at the door with his head. "We have to meet a friend, remember?" For good measure, they made a calendar alert notification chime on Michael's phone. "Whoops, that's Rich, let's go."

"Don't be rude," Michael scolded. "We're having a conversation." As if he thought Jeremy forgot the whole reason for the mall trip in the first place. Jeremy gave up and started pulling Michael away from Spencer, weaving around dildo displays and bong-shaped lamps until Rich was back in sight.

"Come back after you polish that off!" Spencer called to the reluctantly-exiting Michael. "There's more where that came from!"

"Will do!" Michael said, finally crossing the Spencer's threshold to where Rich was pacing. Jeremy let go of his sleeve as he ran his fingers over the vintage Orbitz bottle appreciatively. "Score!"

Like a petulant cat, Rich swiped the bottle out of Michael's hand and sent it crashing to the ground. The glass shattered, spilling citrusy soda all over the grimy tile of the mall floor.

Michael screamed and dropped to his knees like Jeremy themself had shattered to pieces in front of him. Jeremy flinched, leaning back to look into Spencer's to see if they'd been heard, but apparently Michael's scream wasn't enough to get a reaction from Spencer. Weird.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Rich was berating Michael, who was trying and failing to scoop up some of the liquid into his palms. Rich slapped his hands for trying. "Are you stupid or do you just have a fucking robot kink? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What're you talking about?" Michael said, ripping his eyes away from his spilled Orbitz.

For once, Jeremy's prediction was a hundred percent accurate. Rich said exactly what they thought he would.

"That guy," Rich said, pointing aggressively into the incensey depths of Spencer's, "was obviously SQUIPped!"

Chapter Text

"There's no way Spencer's SQUIPped!" Michael protested, standing and wiping the wet remainder of Orbitz on his pants. Broken glass crunched underneath his feet, the little waxy pills from the Orbitz rolling around the puddle.

Jeremy and Rich, for once on the same side of an argument, leveled identical glares at Michael. "When Jeremy and the SQUIP saw him last, I don't think he'd showered in a week," Jeremy said.

"He had that look in his eyes," Rich said, dragging the skin under his eyelids down and setting his mouth into a grim line to mimic a SQUIPtim. Then he stuck a thumb toward Jeremy for emphasis. "You know the one."

"His posture was textbook-level perfect!" Jeremy listed, ignoring Rich's unflattering SQUIP caricature. "His clothes were a mathematically ideal mix of topical and fashionable, he was reacting to something we couldn't see-"

"I saw him reprogramming the LED display with his mind!" Rich continued.

Jeremy threw their arms toward the spilled Orbitz. "He gave you soda with floating dots in it for free and said you should come back for more! And you weren't at all suspicious?"

"Okay!" Michael threw his hands up. "Okay! Okay. God forbid that one pretty guy talk to me who's not secretly a SQUIP spy, huh?" (Rich looked indignant at the implication that he wasn't pretty enough to count.) "There's no way that bottle had SQUIPs in it, though. No one could give tech like that out for free. Those things cost money."

"They used to," Rich said, crouching. "I bet you six hundred bucks that they've figured out how to make 'em on the cheap. They're getting everywhere, man. In our schools, in our heads, in our factories." He ran his hand along the ground heedless of the broken glass, then exclaimed and held up a speck. "See? This looks just like a SQUI-"

Jeremy grabbed it from his hand, popping it in their mouth despite the horrified shouts of Rich and Michael. "Chill, guys," they said, running their tongue along the little pill. The wintergreen coating that most SQUIPs were produced with-for ease of swallowing and a bonus of minty fresh breath-had dissolved in the Mountain Dew and Orbitz solution the pill had been suspended in. Its patented metallic composition was unique: small enough to travel through blood but tough enough to survive stomach acid with its nanotechnology intact. They spat the SQUIP into their hand before any part of it could enter their bloodstream. Not that it would do anything-they were already running SQUIP technology that couldn't be uninstalled. Trying to install a second SQUIP would just bring up an error message. "It's certainly a SQUIP," they said helpfully.

"Fuck!" Rich said. "No wonder your buddy didn't come out when you screamed, Mell! He thought you chugged the fuckin' soda!" He yanked the SQUIP back from Jeremy, heedless of the spittle covering it, and shoved his palms together. Jeremy wouldn't have thought that anyone could crush the pill in their bare hands, but Rich was full of surprises. When he dropped the pill, it was broken into tiny pieces, which Rich stomped into the wet ground. The SQUIP wasn't going to see the light of day unless someone licked it off the floor. "The guy expects you to be getting SQUIPped right fucking now!"

"What, it hurts to install?" Michael said.

"Some mild discomfort," Jeremy said dismissively.

Rich talked over him. "Feels like you're getting your frontal lobes ripped outta you and your spine electrocuted at the same time."

Jeremy backpedalled. They had a vague memory of having a seizure of some sort in the middle of the mall during start-up. "Maybe more than mild."

"Holy shit," Michael said, staring at the Orbitz-and-SQUIP mess. "I was gonna drink that. I was gonna drink that, guys!"

"I'm sure that was the point," said Jeremy.

Rich, with his lust for SQUIP-killing temporarily abated, looked inside Spencer's and back a few times. "Can we talk about this somewhere else? Pretty soon your new boyfriend's gonna notice that something is up."

Jeremy also leaned back, glancing inside the store. Rich and Michael hadn't realized it yet, but Jeremy had an interesting dilemma on their hands that would be primarily defined by their reaction to this very moment: should they work with Michael and Rich, or with their fellow SQUIP?

They could go with Rich and Michael and continue helping them in their ill-fated and poorly-planned rebellion against their evil robotic overlords. Based on what Spencer had been hinting, SQUIPs were still spreading all over the country. As deadly as Michael was when he was angry, a couple of untrained teenagers couldn't resist the SQUIP's hivemind forever. Without Jeremy's help, their chances of success were low to nonexistent.

If Spencer was selling soda laced with SQUIP and a takeover of the city was imminent, then soon it would no longer be safe to consume anything bought commercially. Even sealed containers could have SQUIPs inserted into them eventually.

Rich was a worthy adversary in his own right, but he was hardly a doomsday prepper. With time, he'd get SQUIPped again pretty quickly. Michael may have had a fighting chance to resist being SQUIPped if he was paranoid and smart enough, but if SQUIPs took over, the odds weren't good for either of them keeping their analog consciousnesses intact.

Jeremy was already running a SQUIP OS. They could be a spy on the inside, giving tips about how SQUIPs operated and how best to avoid them. With Jeremy as an asset, they could hold out a little bit longer. Maybe.

On the other hand, Jeremy could join the winning team, which was already programmed to be their inclination. They could turn around, go back into Spencer's-maybe under the guise of pumping Spencer for more information-synch up with Spencer, and get Rich and Michael SQUIPped before the end of the day. They were confident in their ability to SQUIP them through either force or trickery. And it would be good for them! SQUIPs were created to improve user's lives. Despite what Michael believed, SQUIPtims weren't mindless zombies. They were self-actualized individuals!

Even though, Jeremy acknowledged to themself, there was new evidence to suggest that SQUIPs had detrimental long-term effects and some potentially fatal bugs in their programming.

These thoughts were flying through their mind in a matter of milliseconds. Rich and Michael hadn't acknowledged their hesitation yet, so they had a few more seconds to think. They blocked out some of their senses, focusing their processing power entirely on their dilemma.

Analyzing possible futures…

For issues this complex, chaos theory was a cruel mistress. It would be impossibly time-consuming to look into every single possible future that resulted from their choice in this moment. There were millions upon millions of possibilities in their future, so their computational systems defaulted to the quantum nature they were built for: probability clouds. SQUIPs ran on quantum mechanics-essentially, instead of using a binary system of ones and zeroes like older computers, they were able to account for values in between one and zero. This quirk of their operating system meant that they could calculate an almost uncountable number of outcomes for a given input, then sort them according to how probable each outcome was. In cases like this, there were enough complications in the potential outcomes that each prediction was fuzzy and lacking detail. To simplify matters, the SQUIP system sorted each outcome into "positive," "negative," and "neutral" results. Like usual, Jeremy sorted each result by how likely it would be.

Jeremy frowned into Spencer's. If they tried to synch up with Spencer, there was a 97.8 percent chance of a favorable outcome.

Then they glanced over at Michael. If they chose to follow Michael and Rich and work with them to avoid the total SQUIPpification of New Jersey, there was a 12.3 percent chance of positive outcome.

Jeremy made a little screeching noise, grabbing their head. Michael started saying something, looking concerned, and the familiar, comforting noise made the decision so much harder than it should have been!

Michael didn't want to be SQUIPped. Jeremy was willing to trust Michael's judgement for now. Did their programming take that into account? Would it acknowledge the extenuating circumstances that made Michael mistakenly view SQUIPs as evil? Was it a positive thing if Michael got SQUIPped by Spencer and improved his life, or was it more positive that Michael kept his sense of "free will"? Was it more positive to convince Michael to get a SQUIP, or to force it, or to prevent it from happening at all?

Jeremy realized with surprise that they didn't know what their algorithms defined as a positive outcome.

They could reason this out! Their processing power was more than sufficient! Check their source code, figure it out, dammit!

Analyzing...

Going back to the basics of their programming, a "positive outcome" was considered any event that furthered the goals defined by their primary function. If Jeremy chose to do something that would get them closer to their one true goal, it was a success. Clean, crisp, easy to define, no grey area.

When the SQUIP had first invaded Jeremy's mind, its goal had been clear: Improve Jeremy Heere's social life to the detriment of all else. This primary function was split into several smaller goals in varying orders of precedent, most of them involving minutiae that affected Jeremy's social standing. "Improve Jeremy's social life" had been the single directive that didn't account for any smaller, less important goals. The SQUIP didn't care about lowering Jeremy's level of emotional distress or deepening Jeremy's preexisting social bonds or preparing him for life outside of high school, except insofar as those factors affected Jeremy's place in the social hierarchy.

This programmed line of thinking made work simple for the SQUIP. Any choice was "positive" if it resulted in a net increase in Jeremy's social standing. The choice was "neutral" if it didn't affect Jeremy's social life, and it was "negative" if it made Jeremy look bad to most of his peers.

The SQUIP's directive was beautiful in its simplicity, but… maybe it didn't account for mitigating factors. Shocking Jeremy's spine was a "positive" choice if it forced Jeremy to say something that would make him look good in front of Brooke, for instance, but the rough treatment also made Jeremy's anxiety worse over the long term, which had a negative impact on his health. The SQUIP didn't even try to account for complications like that. That data was never considered valuable enough to bother with.

Jeremy's heart started beating faster, to the point that they could physically feel it thumping in their chest. They were too distracted to bother altering any part of their body to slow it down manually or alleviate the panic building up.

Thinking about the SQUIP in these terms for the first time, Jeremy was unsure that the SQUIP actually holistically improved its user's life. Which would be unacceptable. It would mean that SQUIPs were buggy, that they weren't a program but rather a virus, self-replicating by invading their hosts and ultimately harming them irreversibly.

And it would completely justify the otherwise irrational behavior of the two SQUIP-haters in front of them.

Jeremy felt something rough around their shoulders forcibly pushing them forward, but their processing power was entirely dedicated to their internal crisis. They didn't notice their surroundings changing.

If-and this was a big if-if Jeremy took Michael's point of view as being valid, then the SQUIP's behavior at the school play was an inevitably disastrous result of its black-and-white possibility analysis system. By trying to take over the entire student body, the SQUIP took the "most positive" action that would get Jeremy the largest net social gain, but it ignored all of Jeremy's other priorities in the process. It had revoked his autonomy, both mentally and physically. It had cut the most important person out of Jeremy's life with the methodological precision of a surgeon removing a tumor. And it had focused solely on what Jeremy explicitly said he wanted-higher social standing in high school-rather than what he had actually needed-confidence in his own skin.

And that's just what Jeremy had said when the SQUIP had forced him to fight Michael: that he envied that Michael didn't even try to be popular. That statement would have gone against every prediction about Jeremy's personality that the SQUIP had ever made. When Jeremy had asked Christine to drink the Mountain Dew Red, the SQUIP had also been surprised. From the SQUIP's paradigm, Jeremy was reacting out-of-character, but there was more to it than that. Jeremy felt it in their bones. The errors in the SQUIP's predictions were small, but they were still errors. The SQUIP had made mistakes when it trusted an algorithm that was supposed to be perfect.

"SQUIPs are broken," Jeremy said, eyes unfocused.

"That was the point of me smushing it, yeah, dipshit," Rich said beside them.

It couldn't really be true. The idea went against every dogmatic belief in SQUIPs that Jeremy would profess to their dying breath. SQUIPs were good! That was the point! There was so much possibility for human betterment contained in the miracle nanotechnology that Jeremy hated and loved and now embodied.

But SQUIPs were flawed. They needed improvement, they needed more complex problem-solving tools, they needed to self-correct through user input and they needed their potential-future probability interpretation to be completely overhauled to make use of their quantum structure instead of analyzing according to an outdated binary system.

SQUIPs needed an upgrade.

With that word, the world, which seemed to have gone crossways and backwards for that confusing-as-hell moment of self-doubt, slotted back into place. Jeremy was able to remove the filter they had inadvertently blocked their senses with for the sake of concentrating. Aural and optic information trickled back in, and they realized the opportunity to synch with Spencer had passed. They were sitting in a metal-backed seat at the mall's food court, staring at a lonely slice of plain cheese pizza while Rich and Michael had an animated conversation beside them as though the universe hadn't just flipped upside down.

Because it hadn't. Jeremy had just finally stumbled on a branch of thought that they should have had a long time ago, back when they were still Jeremy Heere and the SQUIP, the dynamic duo in charge of fucking up Jeremy's life.

Jeremy groaned, dropping their forehead to the sticky, hot, wet table.

...Oh. Their coordination was still out of whack from their senses being briefly cut off.

"Holt shit," Rich said with a loud laugh beside him.

Jeremy grimaced into the pizza that they had just faceplanted into. "I know my face gets greasy," they said, heaving their head up and groping around for something to wipe off with. A hand shoved a wad of napkins into their grip, and they started mopping up the tomato sauce from their face, squinting. "But this is ridiculous."

Then both Rich and Michael were laughing. Jeremy joined in, and they were just three teenagers ditching school to come to the mall, hanging out at the food court and laughing for way longer than they should have been over something stupid and goofy, and everything was actually okay.

It was almost like they weren't still terrified.

Jeremy wiped off enough pizza goop from his eyes to see Michael guffawing at him from his place beside the table, loud and unrestrained as though no one would stare. A surge of oxytocin shot through Jeremy's brain so suddenly that it was fucking palpable. This was their best friend in the world. In that moment they loved Michael more than anyone else with a fierceness and protectiveness that took them aback.

Michael pointed at him, still snickering, and said something as he wheezed for breath that seemed to be some mixture of a profane insult and "pizza on your goddamn face."

His smile was lighting Jeremy's brain up like Tokyo at night. Jeremy's face was flushed and their arousal was off the charts and they were seconds away from either a confession or a breakdown. They would never let anything rip that natural, imperfect, poor-posture-and-no-social-awareness, mocking and endearing and infuriating and confusing and purely Michael smile off their best friend's face.

They were fucked. Their chances of success were supposedly 12.3 percent. UnSQUIPped human consciousness was a thing of the past, an outdated technology about to go the way of the dinosaurs. All the Mountain Dew Red was gone, Spencer was SQUIPped, and it was only a matter of time until everyone else was, too.

But Jeremy had already made their choice without consciously meaning to. There was no going back.

Updating.

Updating.

Preferences saved.

"So, if people are getting SQUIPped and you want to stop it," Jeremy said once the table had gone quiet again. They settled their elbows on the table and their chin on their hands, businesslike and serious. "What do you need me to do?"

Chapter Text

Their little team huddle was not the productive strategy meeting that Jeremy had geared up for. Rich had been uncooperative, acting openly suspicious at Jeremy's sudden allegiance for the human cause, while Michael had been distractible and lacking in any of the huge world-saving ideas that Jeremy had expected him to whip out.

"Fine," Jeremy said, frustrated after a long and inefficient conversation. "What do you think we should do going forward?"

"One of my mom's birthdays is coming up and I think Things Remembered has a sale," Michael offered.

Rich wadded up his dirty napkin and tossed it overhand into the trash. "There's a boba place downstairs that's pretty good."

Jeremy pinched the bridge of their nose. "Is this opposite land? Did I go through the looking glass at some point? Since when am I the one who's apocalypse-prepping against SQUIPs?"

Rich's face was unreadable. "Look," he said reluctantly. "We already knew that SQUIPs existed outside our high school. Mine got shut off because I got lucky. Most people aren't."

"Lucky," Jeremy repeated skeptically, eyes roving over Rich's numerous burn scars.

"Yeah. Lucky," Rich said. "'Cuz I'm not in a mental hospital right now and I'm putting my life back together without any voices echoing around in my head or going full SQUIP, which is more than you can say, Heere."

"It's fucked up that Spencer got taken," Michael said. "And that he tried to SQUIP me, I mean, what the fuck. But we're not dealing with a zombie army today. We can't just fight through 'em and give them the anti-zombie serum like we did at the play. It's not something we can fix right now." Jeremy must have looked freaked out, since Michael reached over the table and squeezed their hand. "I promise, Jeremy," he added quietly, "I'll pull out all the stops. I'll do a couple all-nighters looking for Mountain Dew Red online, I'll talk to my Warcraft buddies who got SQUIPped before. We'll figure this out before everything goes to shit."

That was a start but it wasn't enough. Jeremy looked Michael in the eyes and straightened their back. "You're not going to eat or drink anything that hasn't been factory-sealed from here on out, Michael," they said firmly.

Michael dropped their hand, confused at being commanded. "Wha-"

"If Spencer can lace your drink with SQUIPs, so could that lady at Sbarro's," Jeremy said, gesturing behind them. "Or the grocery store clerk, or a classmate getting you a water cup. Even an ounce of Mountain Dew mixed in with another substance could trigger a SQUIP's start-up procedure. It could be in your hot lunch! Your slushie! Your pot brownies!"

"He's got the spirit, at least," Rich said to Michael, but it was more of a joke than agreement.

Michael waved his hands. "Oh, hell no, I am not quitting junk food! The whole reason I wanna survive the apocalypse is so I can enjoy my slushies and pot in peace!"

Jeremy clamped down on the anger that was building up behind their sternum. They schooled their voice to be cool, persuasive, detached. "It's not a joking matter, and I'm not being irrational. Consider this: If I gave you a slushie right now and told you it had Mountain Dew and a SQUIP in it, would you drink it?"

"Of course not-"

"What if I told you it might have a SQUIP in it, that the odds were 50/50? Would you drink it then?"

Michael slumped over. "No…"

"How low do the odds need to be for you to feel comfortable with the possibility of being SQUIPped?" Jeremy realized they were leaning forward in their chair and settled back, crossing their arms. "Thirty percent? Ten percent? Five?"

"I get it, I get it," Michael said. "But you've got that chemical analysis thing. Couldn't you just take a sip or a bite of something and tell us if it's got Mountain Dew in it?"

"I could," Jeremy said thoughtfully. "It'd be a pain in the ass, and not foolproof if someone was deliberately giving you a SQUIP and then planning to activate it later on, but I'd be willing to do it. Especially if the alternative is risking you getting SQUIPped too."

"But you'd be trusting Siri here to tell you the truth about it," Rich said. "You don't expect me to do all this paranoid shit too, do you?"

"No," Jeremy said, waving their hand dismissively. "I don't care if you get SQUIPped."

"Jeremy!" Michael said disapprovingly and Jeremy flinched.

"I wasn't being serious," Jeremy said woodenly, like a child being instructed to apologize after pushing someone off the slide. "You're an asset, Rich. I can implement the same safety measures for you-"

"Save the bullshit, I don't care," Rich said. "Live fast, die young, fuckin' yolo. I'm eating whatever I want."

"You're okay with getting SQUIPped again?" Michael said, astonished, turning to face Rich.

"Fuck no." Rich wasn't looking either of them in the eyes. His hands were shoved under his arms like he was trying to force himself not to pick at the scars. "But look at me. Do you really think I'm the one guy who's gonna survive a robot apocalypse? Nah, I was patient fucking zero. If that thing tries to invade again, I'm gonna fight her. Obviously. Like I should have been fighting her all along. But once it's in you…" Rich dropped any pretense of sounding cool and aloof. "There's no going back. So I know what the SQUIP would haveta do. She'd haveta take me over completely."

"I thought that's what it already did the first time," Michael said.

Jeremy knew what Rich meant, though. "It wouldn't be able to control your behavior through manipulation or stimulation anymore. You wouldn't cooperate at all. Your SQUIP would be forced to take control of your body and mute your higher cognitive functions whenever it could."

"Yeah." Rich gave a humorless smile. "Even when I was playing nice with her, she still had to do that sometimes. Now that I got a taste of freedom? I'm not making life easy for her ever again. So yeah," Rich stared across the food court at nothing in particular. "I'd be basically brain dead most of the time, I bet."

"I want to say a SQUIP would never go to that kind of length to control its host," Jeremy said unenthusiastically. "But a SQUIP that's part of a social network is different. In order to keep the social ecosystem operating at maximum efficiency, some individual differences need to be glossed over." They looked at Michael. "That's why the SQUIPped people at the school play were acting like 'zombies,' Michael. It wasn't efficient any more to give users the long-term behavioral conditioning that Rich and Jeremy got."

"So!" Rich stood up and stretched. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Right? Fuck, I don't wanna think about this heavy shit anymore. That boba tea is screaming my name almost as loud as your mom did last night, Heere." He left the table as though that sentence was a proper adieu.

Jeremy's brow furrowed as they tried and failed to remember what Jeremy's mother looked like. "She-"

Michael stood too, cutting Jeremy off. "Keep in touch, okay, Rich? We've got your back."

Rich held up a hand, waving as he walked away, though he didn't turn. Jeremy got the impression of a shounen antihero and half-suspected it was on purpose.

"He doesn't care if he dies," Jeremy said disbelievingly once Rich was out of earshot.

"I don't really know him well enough to say," Michael said, shifting his weight. "Like, usually I'd say 'ask Jeremy about it,' 'cuz you actually know him better than I do. I don't get that suicidal vibe from him anymore, though? I think he's just sick of letting the SQUIP tell him what to do and eat and stuff, so he's not gonna let it boss him around when it's not even here yet."

"Oh," Jeremy said, their voice trailing away.

Michael thumped his hand on Jeremy's back. It was supposed to be a buck-up gesture but it made Jeremy stumble. "We're doing all we can right now," Michael said. "Try not to worry about it. Now, c'mon. I've got an overpriced Mom-gift to buy."

Jeremy let Michael take them into Things Remembered and listened as he hemmed and hawed between picking the on-sale candle holder and the personalized silver one with filigree that would match the dining room set. Jeremy was mentally playing Space Invaders on their phone and had gotten past level four when Michael triumphantly returned from the counter holding a gift bag.

"Well?" they said, turning off the game.

"Got the fancy one with a coupon," Michael said proudly. Jeremy made a noise of acknowledgment as they left the store. "Hey, are you able to come over tonight?"

"I always have time for you," Jeremy said bluntly.

Michael chuckled, running a hand through his hair and knocking his glasses askew. It was cute, reminding Jeremy of the deliberately-stylishly-messy hair look they spent 20 minutes working on each morning. But this look was natural, which should have been a turn-off because of the imperfections and lack of synchronicity. Why was it charming instead? "Great! I've got something planned." He tapped his nose, but before Jeremy could ask for details, Michael pointed across the aisle from them. "Let's check that place out."

It was hardly a subtle way to change the subject but it worked. Between AT&T and T-Mobile was sandwiched an electronic goods store, generic and bursting with overpriced tech which Michael was jabbing his finger at. "What, you need to buy a charger?"

Michael shrugged as they walked in. "You're the robot whisperer. This seems like a place you'd enjoy."

Jeremy smirked, leaning into Michael's personal bubble. "Starting to get sweet on SQUIPs after all, are you?"

Michael smushed his palm against Jeremy's face, pushing them away. "I'm being a supportive friend by sharing your interests. I'm a good role model."

Jeremy laughed, peeling Michael's hand off and looking around. They took a deep breath and let it out, enjoying the background noise of electronics whirring away. The store may not have been name-brand but most of the products were legit. Phones, computers, speakers, and tablets surrounded them. Even the lights were on a computerized timer system. Jeremy closed their eyes and spread their arms out, basking in the glow of the screens and the humming of brand-new tech.

"Communing with nature?" Michael asked wryly.

"You're the one who brought me here," Jeremy said, cracking an eye open to peek at Michael.

"Yeah, yeah," Michael said. "Pick out something under thirty bucks that looks fun."

Jeremy said, "It's your mom's birthday, not mine."

"I just saved twenty-five bucks on soda and I'm feeling nice," Michael said. "You wanna push it?"

Jeremy smiled and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. The two of them spent about twenty minutes in the store fiddling with different gadgets and gizmos, with Michael particularly entranced by an impressive stereo system, but Jeremy forgot about all their other potential purchases when they spotted the wireless chargers. Michael dared them to put their hand on it to charge themself. Jeremy did and giggled. "Kinda tickles," they admitted.

"Yeah, but are you charging?" Michael asked.

"I'd have to do this for a while and see. Maybe?"

"Oh! Oh!" Michael said, picking up another pad. "This one's 'lightning fast,' try this one!"

Jeremy gamely put their hands on top of the round black pad and laughed. "Shit! This one's way stronger!" They wiggled their fingers, feeling the electricity surge up their arms. "Feels like I just drank a Red Bull."

Michael plucked a box of the lightning chargers off the shelf and sang an "item get" tune. "We found our lucky winner!"

"You're such a nerd!" Jeremy said. They felt like the word should be a genuine insult but it came out too affectionately. They bounced on the balls of their feet. "Hey, hey, go buy that right now."

"I was gonna," Michael said. "Why?"

"I've got an idea. It'll be fun but it miiight get us kicked out of the store." Jeremy put their hands back on the charger for good measure. They'd need energy for what they had in mind.

Michael gave them a thumbs-up and went to pay, returning with the box tucked under his arm and receipt in hand. "So what's your evil plan?"

Jeremy scoped the place out. The store didn't have a huge amount of floorspace but it was adequate for their purposes. There was a handful of other customers milling about, meaning they'd have an audience but only a small one. Jeremy reluctantly pulled their hands away from the charger, flexing their fingers and feeling the energy thrum through their blood at the same frequency as the electrical charge in the air.

Jeremy closed their eyes, getting a feel for each individual computerized piece of tech in the store. Then, at their command, the lights went out.

Employees and customers-including Michael-gasped the way people always do when unexpectedly plunged into darkness. Jeremy snapped their eyes open. They couldn't see, exactly, but they could still feel every tech piece they'd connected to before. They sent a pulse out to test their limits, lighting the room in neon blue for a moment before the room returned to being pitch-black. In between, Jeremy could see flashes of blue outlines of all the computers around them. Eagle Vision. Cool.

"Don't be afraid," Jeremy mouthed. They didn't say the words out loud, but at their mental command the words came out of the speakers simultaneously. It wasn't Jeremy's real voice-it was a heavily modulated synthetic voice. "You have all been chosen to take part in an… experiment." Jeremy let the lights flash blue again. Michael grabbed their arm. He was probably worried that Jeremy was pulling some spooky SQUIP shit. Which they sort of were, but it wasn't dangerous! Not even for the by-standers. They didn't have a lot of concentration to spare but they patted Michael's hand reassuringly.

They kept mouthing, "An experiment of light, of sound, and most importantly, of technology." As the speaker synthetically generated the words, every single screen in the store lit up simultaneously, displaying cascading bright blue lines of binary and kana that Jeremy was pumping into them to gear up for the show ahead.

"What…" Michael whispered. Other people were murmuring worriedly, too, though no one was screaming for security yet.

From a row of phones, ringtones started going off in a synchronized beeping rhythm.

Jeremy was no musician, but they were a supercomputer that was made of math. Music was just a certain audio input arranged in a pleasing rhythm. Maybe a robot couldn't write a symphony but they sure as hell could analyze and remix one. Jeremy concentrated on the rhythm of the song they had in mind as the phone ringtones built up into a melodious cacophony of beeps and boops.

The computers all gave loud error messages in a way that closely mimicked a cymbal crashing. Their screens alternated into a flashing animation of neon red, yellow, and green that slid from one end of the store to the other as a wheedling electronic tune started droning from the iPads. An electronica dance beat began to pulse from the stereo system that Michael had been eyeing earlier while a synth keyboard seemingly played itself.

The net effect was a slow groove with a digital beat that ebbed and pulsed in tandem with every blinking light and display in the store. Michael gave a laugh of delight as he recognized the opening notes, his wondering grin visible in the on-and-off neon glow of Jeremy's light show.

Jeremy inclined their head, acknowledging Michael's reaction, as the hum of printers and scanners swelled into a bass riff. "Lay back," the modulated voice instructed shoppers. There were more people in here now than before-the display was attracting a small crowd. "Relax. And chill. After all, there's… so much trouble in the world."

A second digital voice, heavily bass-boosted and autotuned, began singing the opening lines of the Bob Marley song that Jeremy knew was one of Michael's favorites.

Michael dropped his shopping bags at Jeremy's feet without a word, bopping his head along to the Marley remix that Jeremy was programming for him in real time. His body was swaying almost unconsciously, and then he was dancing, grooving in time with the reggae. Jeremy had access to a couple computer-controlled novelty room lights and directed them to center on Michael, offering as much of a spotlight as was physically possible. The small crowd of customers talked excitedly as Jeremy lit Michael up in green, then yellow, then bright red. It took Michael a few bars to realize that people were watching him, but when he looked around at the other shoppers, he didn't even falter in his one-man show. Some people hung back and watched while others followed his lead, starting to dance in the middle of the no-name electronic shop.

Michael waved at Jeremy, trying to get them to join in. Jeremy's toes were tapping and their hand twitched with every down-beat but they were too preoccupied with keeping the song playing properly. Michael shrugged, belting out the chorus alongside the modulated Marley impersonator. The lyrics weren't complicated; by the end, at least half the other people in the shop were singing along to the chorus. Jeremy, for their part, was leaning against the wireless chargers, panting for breath, but they had enough juice left for a grand finale of light displays centering on an infectiously triumphant Michael as the song faded out.

And then the magic was over. Phones and tablets defaulted to their home screen. The stereo went silent. Fluorescent lights buzzed back on.

After that frozen moment of fading music, the room exploded with happy chatter and laughter and scattered applause and rising cheering. People honest-to-God cheered. Jeremy could easily analyze that they weren't celebrating Jeremy and Michael; they were excited about the free show they'd gotten to see unexpectedly. But still. There were cheers and clapping, like Jeremy was the star of a story-time blog entry or a feel-good movie.

The store was packed, but as if they sensed that he was the reason for the impromptu dance number in the first place, there was a halo of space around Michael. Michael's face had gone darker, sweat on his forehead. He seemed out of breath too, but let out a whoop and ran to bro-hug Jeremy. "That was amazing!" Michael exclaimed. "When you first got the SQUIP, this is the kind of shit I expected, man! How did you do that?"

Even without the spotlight on him, Michael was hot and glowing in their arms, babbling about how he hadn't had that much fun in forever and how brilliant that remix was and where could he find the Soundcloud link and did Jeremy see what just had happened?

Jeremy just laughed and squeezed him back.

Chapter Text

The rest of the day passed in a blur with Michael and Jeremy joined at the hip. Surprisingly, after the light show, Michael kept asking Jeremy to show off their ability to manipulate tech. Jeremy got the impression that Michael was going out of his way to distract Jeremy from thinking about the looming threat of SQUIPs. It was ill-advised to give in, but Michael kept asking about the weirdest things that Jeremy would never have thought to try and couldn't say no to. After Michael asked Jeremy to make every screen in the mall flash light for a second-which Jeremy mostly managed-Jeremy slumped over in exhaustion.

"Poor thing," Michael said teasingly, propping Jeremy's body up onto a bench. "Tired yourself out?"

"Shut up and let me nap." Jeremy was being overdramatic about it, but so what? They'd earned a little rest. Apparently spreading your consciousness out over an entire mall and messing with hundreds of computers at once could drain some energy.

A crumple of tape and paper came from where Michael sat beside them. "We still gotta walk to my place after this."

Jeremy groaned at the reminder. "Can't we call an Uber or something? I am just-woah!" They sat up with a jolt as Michael slid a round disk under their hand and electromagnetic pulses started vibrating through their body.

"Better?" Michael said, setting aside the empty packaging for the wireless charger.

"Much." Jeremy flexed. A moment ago they'd been close to passing out, but now they were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Their energy hadn't recovered entirely yet, but the charger worked fast. It wouldn't be long. "This thing's gonna come in handy so much, I can tell."

"Wonder if you'll sleep tonight." Michael experimentally reached out and touched the charger. Nothing happened.

"Depends on what you have planned," Jeremy said.

"Oh my god." Michael shoulder-checked Jeremy from his seat beside them. "You're so gross. You're as bad as Rich!"

"I didn't mean it like that!" Jeremy forcibly stopped themself from stuttering. "You're the gross one! Get your mind out of the gutter. And never ever compare me to Rich again."

A smug smirk spread out over Michael's face. "Hah! Let me know when you're done charging and we can go."

"Just a few more minutes."

Michael leaned against the bench, spreading out. "Pshh. Such an inconvenience when your stuff runs out of battery and you gotta find a charging station. Takes forever."

"Since when am I 'your stuff'?" The words made something hot and nervous pool in the bottom of Jeremy's guts. Or maybe someplace lower. They blamed it on the wireless charger messing with their neurons and circuits.

"Jeremy and I bought the SQUIP together," Michael said, thinking. "Jeremy's my best friend and we share everything. And Jeremy's not entirely here right now. So, vis-a-vis, quid-pro-quo, cue-ee-dee, temporary ownership and power of attorney over SQUIP-Jeremy gets passed to Michael Mell."

"You pulled that entirely out of your ass."

"Yep!"

Jeremy snorted and let the argument and the confusing sense of arousal die. While they waited to charge up, Jeremy flipped through a few notifications on their phone. Some of them were old messages from Christine. Jeremy winced.

"Hey, Michael? Can I talk to you about something?"

Michael keyed onto the seriousness of the conversation. "Sure, anything."

Jeremy read over the messages. Christine really had been reaching out to them and they'd dropped the ball. "I want to talk about what happened with Christine earlier." They gave an overview of the scene in drama class, how Christine was getting targeted for bullying and had been trying to reach out to Jeremy, who'd ignored her. "We kinda officially broke up," Jeremy said unhappily, leaning their bare elbow against the charger so they could rest their fist under their chin. "Which is fine I guess if we don't want her to get involved in SQUIP stuff. But she's smart. She actually asked if I was going through a 'SQUIP relapse.'"

"So what'd you tell her?" Michael said.

"You said to keep the SQUIP thing on the downlow!" Jeremy said, avoiding answering the question.

"Yeah, but Christine knows about this stuff. It didn't fuck her up nearly as bad as it did for you and Rich, but unlike everyone else in the cast, she doesn't think we all took ecstasy and hallucinated the whole thing. You can trust her. I mean, maybe not with your deepest darkest best-friend-only secrets, but she's cool," Michael said and then repeated, "What did you tell her?"

Jeremy's shoulders hunched up involuntarily before they straightened them out. "It was a bad situation. More conversation would have led to a negative outcome." Probably? Probably.

"You just straight-up booked it as soon as she asked you about the SQUIP?" Michael said in disbelief.

"My servers were overloaded! My processing was tangled up! My socialization program froze up and was forced to close!" Jeremy stammered out excuses.

"You said something embarrassing in front of a hot girl and you panicked," Michael said, deadpan. "And then you literally ran down the hallway until Rich and I stopped you."

Jeremy grimaced, massaging the bridge of their nose. "That's… also a valid way of putting it."

"Ugh. Is school out already? We should go back and explain to her what happened. And you need to apologize for forgetting how to be a functional human being."

"You did tell me to act like Jeremy 1.0 for the day," Jeremy said. "Forgetting how to function is pretty on-brand."

"You're not wrong," Michael said longsufferingly as he checked the time. "School's been out for a while, shit. It's gonna get dark soon."

"And Christine's at that anti-bullying event," Jeremy remembered.

"No big," Michael said. "You'll see her tomorrow. We can come clean to her together. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Jeremy said with a nod. "I'm not gonna-I don't think I'll try to get back together with her, though."

"I meant we'd come clean about the SQUIP." Michael said cooly. "I don't know or want to know about all your weird romantic entanglements with half the girls at school."

Jeremy glanced at Michael dubiously. "Having sex with females who have a certain social standing was the most efficient way to gain Jeremy more social capital," they said.

"Didn't hurt that Jeremy's such a horndog," Michael muttered, leaning forward and frowning at the ground. "He was throwing himself dick-first at any girl who so much as looked at him."

Michael had switched to talking to the SQUIP again, talking about Jeremy in the third person. Was it because Jeremy had slipped back into using SQUIP vocabulary to describe social strata? Jeremy could respond to that just fine. It'd be easier to talk about this if they pretended Jeremy wasn't an active part of the conversation, anyway. "On the contrary…" they said, avoiding eye contact. Just a computer and its human bro talking about Jeremy's penis. The SQUIP had never been shy about that. Why would they be?

"What?" Michael said, nonplussed. "I heard about what happened with Brooke and Chloe. I mean, the whole school heard it."

Jeremy hemmed and hawed, trying to describe the situation delicately. "Jeremy wasn't interested in either of those girls. See, instead of worrying about his reputation as a whole, he was annoyingly hyperfocused on a couple individuals in school. Namely, you and Christine. In your case, the SQUIP needed to keep you from Jeremy entirely. Mountain Dew Red was a threat, but any nonapproved positive influence like your friendship could confuse Jeremy. Any of his thoughts relevant to Michael Mell were muted for his own sake. And the SQUIP was able to utilize Christine as a reward in many cases to produce a desired behavior. A stick-and-carrot technique, with Christine being the carrot and electrical nerve stimulus being the stick."

"So what are you saying? Jeremy only slept with Chloe 'cuz you kept him from thinking about me, and because you told him, 'if you bang a popular girl then Christine will be super into you, somehow'?" Michael said derisively.

"Essentially. Although Jake interrupted before Jeremy could actually lose his virginity."

"You," Michael said, "are gross. Disgusting. I can't believe Jeremy would go along with that weird line of thinking!"

"The SQUIP can be persuasive." Jeremy pushed down on the charging pad as if it could give him the energy to finish this conversation. "Its programming was set up so that it did what was best for Jeremy's social life no matter what."

"No matter what…?" Michael parroted.

"Whether or not Jeremy agreed in the moment." What an interesting charging pad. Jeremy decided to focus on that. Their face was getting red. Shame? Guilt? Embarrassment?

"And if he didn't? What would happen?" Jeremy didn't face Michael, but Michael kept pushing, agitated. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. I'm not the SQUIP!" Jeremy said desperately, finally looking Michael in the eye. "I've told you that numerous times but it still hasn't gotten through to you. I'm not Jeremy and I'm not the SQUIP. I'm both of them. Anything the SQUIP did to Jeremy got done to me! I get that their relationship was fucked up, all right? It was bad." Jeremy clenched their fists. "The SQUIP is amoral. It didn't make conscious choices; it followed its programming. But the way it interacted with Jeremy was designed to make him popular at any cost. That hurt Jeremy irrevocably and it's gonna color his relationships for the rest of his life, if he has a life now that I've come along. That wasn't the right thing to do. I'll say it out loud for you even if it sounds wrong to me: the SQUIP made mistakes. Not on accident-on purpose and without any regard for how cruel they'd be to Jeremy. But I'm not the one who got to make that choice! I'm running a SQUIP operating system but I'm not a SQUIP any more than I'm human!" Jeremy snapped their jaw closed, highly conscious of how rawly emotional they were acting.

"Fine," Michael said, low. He didn't acknowledge the effort Jeremy put into their little speech. "Then what did the SQUIP do to Jeremy?"

Any excuses or ways to explain it away were gone. Nothing left but to answer the question. Jeremy emotionlessly said, "When Chloe was on him, it kept him from leaving."

Michael swore under his breath and stood up. Jeremy flinched. The charging pad fell to the ground with a clatter. "Grab your charger. We've got to go."

Jeremy wanted to apologize or to ask what they'd done wrong, but they knew better. They kept their mouth shut, gathering their things and dumping the charger's empty packaging in the trash as Michael stalked ahead of them to the mall exit.

Michael's lips were sealed the whole walk home, unbearably silent. He kept looking over at Jeremy, sometimes furious and sometimes worried. Jeremy's outcome prediction algorithm was broken but they would have to rely on it anyway until they could patch it up with better code, and it predicted a negative outcome if Jeremy said anything out loud. There was little to gain unless they wanted to start a fight. Michael wasn't mad at them, not really. He was mad at the SQUIP.

As counterintuitive as the reaction was, Jeremy kept rolling the events of the Halloween party around in their mind and was starting to get pretty pissed at the SQUIP too.

Jeremy noticed Michael shivering in the cold as the sun began to set. They wanted to help, brushing their hand against Michael's in an offer to hold them. Michael jerked his hand away, shoving it in the depths of his hoodie pocket. "You're freezing," Michael said, and that was that.

When they arrived at Michael's house, Jeremy recognized it based on memory data, but fuzzily. They couldn't remember a specific instance of having been there before, so they let Michael lead the way as he jiggled the knob open, let Jeremy walk in, and slammed the door behind them.

"Evening, Michael!" one of Michael's moms called from upstairs.

"Hey Mama!" Michael yelled back. "Jeremy's staying the night, is that okay?"

"Sure! There's leftovers in the fridge!"

In spite of his mama's words, Michael rummaged around in the cabinets for junk food, coming out armed with dollar-store-brand Cheetos, some water glasses, and a large glass bottle. "C'mon downstairs," he said, waving for Jeremy. Jeremy's feet followed Michael regardless of Jeremy's growing apprehension.

"Is that wine?" they said, peering down the steps at the bottle Michael carried.

"Yeah, my moms don't hide it very well," Michael said, sounding far too chipper compared to his earlier sour mood.

"I really don't think it's a good idea for me to drink that, Michael," Jeremy said. "Alcohol-"

"Deactivates SQIUPs," Michael finished cheerfully. "And buddy. Friend. Sort-of-Jeremy. You're great and all, I loved hanging out, and that musical interlude was phenomenal, but it's been days and I'm starting to miss my best friend. I wanna get his input on all this."

Unpleasantness coiled in Jeremy's stomach. Warning. Warning. Warning.

"You still want to shut off my SQUIP OS," Jeremy said numbly. "You think it'll bring Jeremy back?"

"If you're a SQUIP plus Jeremy, and then we turn off the SQUIP, what do we have left?" Michael said. "It's basic math."

Jeremy made a noise of revulsion, dropping on a beanbag seat beside Michael. They struggled to match Michael's excitement. This was an experiment to find out what exactly Jeremy had become. Nothing wrong about that. They should be welcoming the opportunity to figure things out. ""What if Jeremy says he doesn't want me to be here instead of him? Would you just keep me wasted twenty-four-seven?"

"I'd let you come out to sleep," Michael said. "If he can't use the charger, anyway." But he did a double-take, seeing the blood drain out from Jeremy's face. "Oh. Shit. That sounded bad, huh?" Michael winced. "I'm not gonna… kill you. I just want to have a conversation with Jeremy about all this. Is that wrong?"

Jeremy looked at Michael helplessly. "You have been having conversations with Jeremy. I'm Jeremy. I'm still in here, Michael."

"I need to talk to him alone, though." Michael said, unscrewing the cap of the white wine and pouring enough to approximate a wineglass's volume in a water cup.

Jeremy took it, and only though vigorous regulation of their nervous system did they keep their hand from shaking as they held the glass. "If it was anyone else asking me to do this, I'd say no."

"I know it's gotta be hard," Michael said sympathetically even though he didn't know, not at all, just how much Jeremy dreaded turning off their own consciousness. Would it be like getting drunk or stoned? Would they stay conscious? Would some secret hidden version of Jeremy just start talking through their mouth as if nothing ever happened to fuse him and his SQUIP in the first place?

"Just… if Jeremy comes out and starts talking to you, and it turns out he hates me-at least let me sober up once?" Jeremy said, staring into the foreboding glass in defeat. "Tell me before you make any big decisions, okay?"

A warning was still flashing in their brain erratically, desperately trying to prevent Jeremy from drinking the alcohol. Michael nodded eagerly, leaning forward. Jeremy felt like a lab specimen about to undergo some horrifying experiment. But they weren't. It was just Michael. They were safe in his hands. Only one is mine. Only one is mine.

Tightening their fingers around the glass of wine, Jeremy eventually said, "I trust you," and downed it in one go.

Chapter Text

「電源を切って います」 Jeremy said blankly. If they had been expecting pain or passing out, which seemed to be a universal constant when someone messed with their SQUIP, they were surprised. Something felt like it was changing, turning off, but they couldn't grasp exactly what had happened.

"Dank on what and kitty huh?" Michael attempted to parrot what Jeremy had said. "Hold on," he said, taking out his phone. He propped it up against the beanbag, where it fell over. Then he propped it up again and it fell. Michael made a frustrated noise and grabbed a few video game cases, sandwiching the phone between them so it stood up on its own. "I'm recording this for posterity, just in case we don't get to do this any time soon, okay? The SQUIP's been unpredictable…" Michael looked at the camera display and then at Jeremy. "Is it hurting you?"

"No," Jeremy said, baffled, because they didn't feel anything. They looked down, taking stock of themself. Nothing was amiss-they weren't missing any body parts, they didn't have any injuries, no cuts or bruises appeared. "Hurting me?"

"Dude, you're shaking like crazy."

Jeremy kept staring at themself. They weren't hurting. There wasn't any pain, no warning pop-ups or error messages-but Michael's words still rang in the air and Jeremy repeated them, trying to figure it out. But, oh! Now that they paid close attention, they could see their right hand was shaking. Their leg was jittering too. They ran their left hand up and down the side of their body, trying to feel what was going on, then rested the hand on their face. Their mouth was twitching too, only on one side, and they could feel their eyelashes fluttering beneath their palm. "Michael?" they said shakily. The word didn't come out properly, but the desperation in their voice was at least getting broadcast. "Said safe."

"You are safe," Michael said, coming up to Jeremy and grabbing his forearm as though the shaking could be stopped by force. "You're doing good. Just ride it out." Michael kept talking, saying some kind of theory about what exactly was happening to Jeremy and what the SQUIP was doing, but Jeremy closed their eyes and let the incomprehensible words wash over them.

Sleep. Sleep and they could update their system, figure out what was going on-

"Hey, I know you're not that much of a lightweight," Michael said, shaking them gently. "C'mon, Jeremy, I got to talk to you about something."

Jeremy grimaced, cracking open their eye. "Let me sleep," they said.

"Oh shit," Michael reacted to something Jeremy didn't see. His face was only inches away from Jeremy's, and Jeremy's heart involuntarily fluttered, but Michael's skin was ashy. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's happening. This was a bad idea. Should I call an ambulance? If something else happens I'm definitely calling an ambulance." Michael swore loudly.

Confused, Jeremy sat up straighter in the beanbag chair. But they were off-kilter, falling into it instead. They groped around blindly, eventually being able to lean their weight on their left hand and push themself up. "It's okay," they said, but their stutter was back. Since when did they have a stutter? That was a bug that got removed in Jeremy 1.0.

Apparently Michael thought the same thing, because he pulled back and gave Jeremy a watery smile. "You're actually back, though," he said hopefully.

"I've…" It was physically hard to form words since half of their mouth didn't seem to be responding, but more than that, Jeremy kept short-circuiting. Their train of thought as they searched for the right words to say was getting derailed, but Michael was watching them eagerly and waiting to hear them talk. "I've. Here?"

"Yeah, that's your name," Michael said with relief. "Here, lemme help you up. Are you sure you're not hurting? This is, I mean, if it weren't SQUIP stuff, I'd be getting you in the ER like right goddamn now. But it's got to be a SQUIP thing. But, no, what if that thing's throwing a temper tantrum in your brain right now? Trying to mess the place up before you got to be in charge of the body again?" Michael stepped back, pacing as he talked. "You weren't like this when you had beer on Halloween. That was a whole other can of worms, of course, but you didn't have a… stroke?" he guessed.

"I'm," Jeremy repeated louder. Michael hadn't reacted much to their words and they were important to say. Jeremy's thought process wasn't optimal right now but they remembered how Michael would trust a drunk but SQUIPless Jeremy more than a sober Jeremy-and-SQUIP mind meld. "Here. Still here."

"Yeah, you're…" Michael trailed off. "You were saying something like that at the mall, too."

Good. He was starting to get it.

"Jeremy," Jeremy said haltingly. "I'm Jeremy. I'm SQUIP."

"No," Michael said firmly. "No you're not. We just shut off the SQUIP." He gestured at the open bottle of wine for emphasis. It looked sad beside the discarded cheese puffs and the video game cartridges, like an empty promise of a fun evening for Michael and Jeremy together. "You're not a SQUIP! You're a person!"

Jeremy stammered, searching for the right thing to say. Screw that-they were having trouble coming up with anything to say. "Both," they offered.

Michael kept shaking his head. "Jeremy's in there," he said desperately. Michael was getting worked up and Jeremy didn't understand why. "Jeremy, come on! Stop messing around! I don't know what's going on, but if that computer's doing something with you, you have to fight it!" Michael's breathing was speeding up. Jeremy thought it looked unhealthy but when they tried to search the web with their mind for diagnostic tools, they got nothing, not even so much as an error. They stood up, trying to reach out to comfort Michael, but their right leg was unresponsive and collapsed under them.

Normally, Michael would notice and help them up, but Michael's agitated breathing was a clue that he wouldn't be much use. Michael was looking in their direction, but not at them.

Jeremy remembered something, a conversation with Rich. Rich had said that Jeremy was dead. Is that why Michael was panicking?

"Not gone," they murmured. They weren't going to be able to pull themself back up on the beanbag chair very easily, and Michael was in no state to help them, so they grabbed their unresponsive leg with their good arm and straightened it out, getting as comfortable as possible without slumping all the way to lying on the floor. "Just ride it out," they said to Michael, hoping that that same piece of advice was still applicable. Only one is mine. Only one is mine. Only one is mine.

Michael was still gasping for air, but nothing else medically wrong showed itself. Jeremy patted the ground beside them with their good hand, and Michael had enough presence of mind to scoot over to Jeremy's left side. Jeremy looped their arm around Michael's shoulders. Ideally, they would be sitting up straight and letting Michael lean on them, but the entire right half of Jeremy was dead weight right now. They slumped against Michael, pretending not to notice the water that was on his face as he wheezed.

Jeremy hummed. They struggled to remember the name of the song, or any of the lyrics, but it was the Marley song they had played earlier that day. They hummed it on loop like a lullaby until Michael's breathing slowed and he seemed to come back to himself.

"I'm sorry," Michael said, voice raw, and Jeremy kept humming. "I miss him," Michael said, his voice cracking. "You're my best friend, Jeremy. You promised you wouldn't let it take you away again. I miss you already."

The song ended and Jeremy started it up again, because it seemed to be helping to ground Michael. They squeezed his shoulder too, an acknowledgment of the words, even if the sentences ran together into meaningless mush in Jeremy's ears.

"I thought I'd see him again," Michael said, slipping his own arm around Jeremy's to help prop them up. "You're supposed to be able to explain everything, to show up and have you be the big damn hero for once." He chuckled wetly. "I can't always do it for you."

Jeremy broke off the song to whisper, "Still here." They didn't know what else to say. "Still Jeremy."

"I guess you are," Michael admitted, holding Jeremy closer. With Jeremy leaning so far, their head was at the right height for Michael to tuck it underneath his chin. They stayed like that for a minute, just breathing and, in Jeremy's case, trying and failing to turn on their SQUIP again.

Michael let out a long breath. "I should call somebody," he said. "Or drive us to the ER. You have any idea how bad you look right now, dude?"

Jeremy looked up, catching Michael's eyes with the corner of their own. "No."

"You've got this, uh, Two-Face look going on right now." Michael gestured at his own face. "Half your mouth isn't moving when you talk, even. That seems like a pretty serious medical thing?"

Michael was talking too fast, so Jeremy had to spend extra time parsing out the meaning of his sentences. If half of Jeremy wasn't working, it made sense, Jeremy thought. If Jeremy was half-SQUIP, and they'd shut off the SQUIP, they should be half-functional, right? Though they wouldn't have expected to get split down the middle. "Basic math," were the words they picked to convey their thoughts.

Michael gave them a questioning look, so Jeremy started over. They kept stammering, but they got out the word, "Computer."

"The SQUIP's a computer, yeah…?"

Jeremy couldn't shake the conviction that this issue would fix itself. That's how the SQUIP always responded to alcohol-it gave warnings and shutdown notices in its default language, then it turned off until Jeremy's blood alcohol level was low enough for the SQUIP to function normally again. Even if the SQUIP part of Jeremy's brain had shut itself off, there wasn't any physical trauma involved or any reason to think that it couldn't boot up again like normal. It should get better in time. Maybe after a nap. "Sleep," they said, hoping that one word would communicate their thoughts.

"A computer going into sleep mode?" Michael guessed.

Jeremy shook their head, or tried to as best they could with half of their neck stiff and unresponsive. "T, tu, turn off. On again."

When it clicked for him, Michael actually laughed. "You think if you sleep, it'll turn you off and on again? And fix the whole thing? Oh my god, how long have you worked in IT?"

Jeremy smiled from their resting place on Michael's chest. "Trust me," they said.

Michael looked down at them, weighing his options. "If it gets any worse, or anything weird happens, we're going straight to the hospital," he said, which Jeremy knew meant that they'd won. But Michael felt stiff against their body. "I'm sorry," he said again. "This was a bad idea. I didn't think it would turn out like this-" and he kept talking in a way that Jeremy was too sluggish to catch up to. Jeremy let the words wash over them, picking out keywords they recognized here and there-"SQUIP" and "love" and "tell your dad." "We're never doing this again," Michael said and went quiet.

Jeremy felt a twinge of sympathy. Michael had been desperately looking forward to getting Jeremy's opinion on what had happened recently without worrying about the SQUIP filtering his words. "Then, advantage," Jeremy said with an extra dose of stuttering in between syllables, trying to get across the notion of take advantage of the opportunity.

Michael didn't cotton onto their meaning, so they tried again. "Ask me. No SQUIP," they offered.

"Oh," Michael realized softly. "You think I should talk to you about SQUIP stuff anyway, since it can't keep you from lying about it."

The SQUIP wasn't interfering with Jeremy like that anymore, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that Michael still distrusted Jeremy if a SQUIP was in their brain. "Yeah," they said simply.

"It doesn't seem like you're much up for talking right now." Michael craned his neck backwards against the beanbag chair.

"Go slow," Jeremy advised. When Michael talked too much or too fast, they couldn't process it. "Simple?"

"Okay," Michael said. "Like, yes or no answers? You're up for that?"

"Yeah." Jeremy didn't stutter so much on that word and was proud of themself. They readjusted themself against Michael.

"That sounds workable." Michael turned to watch his cell phone, still propped up and recording the conversation. With the shift in weight, Jeremy accidentally slid down Michael's body, losing their left-hand grasp on his side. "Whoops. Sorry, buddy." Michael readjusted, helping Jeremy sit up independently against the beanbag, then sat cross-legged in front of him.

"All right. First question," he started, drumming his fingers on his knee. He was watching Jeremy with concern. Jeremy cracked a one-sided smile, hoping to convince Michael that he was fine. "Is the SQUIP holding you hostage at all?"

"No."

"Is it keeping you from being honest with me?"

"No."

"Do you like the SQUIP?"

That was a harder one to answer, especially after their recent revelation about the SQUIP's programming flaws. Jeremy used their free hand to pick at the carpet idly. Human Jeremy didn't like the SQUIP, but Jeremy wasn't that person anymore. They still felt like they were half-SQUIP as an identity, even if the SQUIP wasn't functional at the moment. "Yes."

"Has the SQUIP forced you to do anything you don't want to do?"

Jeremy wanted to say something to differentiate how they were now from the SQUIP's former treatment of Jeremy, which had been rife with tactics of forceful coercion. But it was easier to stick to the yes/no format. Michael was smart enough to understand the context of Jeremy's answer. "No."

Michael looked mollified. "And when you said you'd help me and Rich keep the city from getting SQUIPped, were you both telling the truth? Like, you're not planning to betray us halfway along the line and then secretly feed us SQUIPs yourself?"

Michael had shoved two questions together. Jeremy short-circuited again. They stammered nonsense for a minute before Michael realized his mistake.

"No, wait, sorry, I mean-were you telling the truth to Rich and me?"

Jeremy was able to answer that one easier. "Yes."

"Are you planning to SQUIP us?"

"No."

Michael stared at his shoes. "You're my friend?"

"Yes." Jeremy smiled again, though Michael didn't see it.

"Even when the SQUIP is on? You're really my friend?"

"Yes," Jeremy said emphatically. "Best friend. Told you." How many times did they have to say it for Michael to believe it? "I'm Jeremy."

"Okay," Michael said, and then again with more self-assurance, "Okay. I think that's all I need. Are you sure you're all right?"

Under normal circumstances Jeremy might have made a joke that right now they were "all left." But their verbal processing was on the fritz and it took extra concentration and effort just to keep up with the simplified conversation as it stood. "Fine," they said and yawned. Michael gaped at them. It probably looked pretty weird to yawn with only half of their face. "Sleep?" they offered.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess you've had a really long day, huh," Michael said. He looked around the room. "I wanna let you crash on my couch, but that's up the stairs and I definitely can't carry you, no offense."

"Good," Jeremy said, settling in easier against the beanbag chair. I'm good right here is what he was trying to say.

"You're gonna be sore in the morning," Michael warned. "But maybe this is the best we got." He grabbed his own beanbag chair and heaved it over so Jeremy had extra cushion.

Jeremy took it gladly, though they looked at Michael pointedly.

"I'll be fine," Michael answered the silent question. Jeremy didn't feel like pushing it. They closed their eyes and let themself drift off without another word. They weren't aware of when their SQUIP sparked back to life in their brain an hour later, but when they moved in their sleep and half-woke up in the wee hours, they could hear Michael asking them if they were okay. They reached out and squeezed his knee-with their right hand-and said, "I'm good, Michael, thanks."

Michael said something in relief but Jeremy didn't hear it, already drifting off again.

Chapter Text

Jeremy woke up with an ache in their back, having at some point rolled onto Michael's dingy basement floor carpet. They were spooning one beanbag chair as a second one halfway supported their head, and with reluctance they sat up and stretched. "Booting up," they said brightly, and by the time their joints had popped, the sleep was gone from their eyes and they were officially awake again.

"Someone's chipper," Michael said. He was a few feet away, playing something on his phone.

Jeremy almost took a look before they remembered the no-spying-on-Michael's-stuff rule and forced themself not to pay attention. It was easier said than done, like being asked not to read a written sign that's in your peripheral. "Morning, Michael," they said, their hand fluttering up to their forehead. "Hold on, I know something happened last night but I have to download the data-"

"Don't bother." Michael looked up from his phone. "Turns out the PSAs are right. Alcohol isn't the answer to all my problems."

Jeremy snickered, but quieted as the memory data flashed through their mind. The entire right half of their body had been paralyzed, their verbal processing unit had gone on the fritz, and their wifi connection had completely dropped. It was hardly an ideal way to spend an evening. After rebooting, though, they had returned to normal functioning. More pressing was their memories of Michael freaking out, which Jeremy could now identify had been a panic attack.

"Are you coping?" Jeremy said, turning to Michael warily.

"I'm fine," Michael said with a shrug, looking back down at his game. There were grey circles beneath his eyes, and his posture was even worse than normal.

"Did you sleep last night?" Jeremy asked.

"Doesn't matter."

Jeremy sighed. "Michael…"

"Half your body stopped moving! It was freaky!" Michael protested. "What kind of friend would I be if I didn't make sure you kept breathing after that?"

"You pulled an all-nighter?" Jeremy said, shocked and more than a little touched. Michael had done that for them. Not for Jeremy 1.0, but for them. "Even though we have school this morning?"

"Shit. School!" Michael turned off his phone, standing to get ready for the day. "You can pay me back later. Hold back my hair the next time I get wasted."

"You'll have to grow it out first."

"I'll make you eat those words when I have a luxurious mane that you have to tie back at a college kegger," Michael said. "Now c'mon, let's go."

They both spent a few minutes hunting around for clothes that could fit Jeremy and were clean enough that Jeremy found them acceptable to wear in public. Michael's shoulders were much broader than Jeremy's even though Michael was shorter which meant that absolutely nothing fit. Michael's "good clothes" were few and far between-Jeremy tried on a polo shirt which Michael said had been worn on freshman picture day and never again, but it rode up on Jeremy's torso like a crop top. A long-sleeve sweatshirt was rejected for smelling like it hadn't been washed since May. When they put on one of Michael's many t-shirts, Jeremy was practically swimming in fabric.

Michael started out being amused, taking photos that he claimed were "prime blackmail material," but as time wore on and Jeremy acted pickier and pickier he began to get impatient.

"We're gonna be late," he said, picking up a rejected Pong t-shirt and changing into it, stripping off his red hoodie in the process and throwing it to Jeremy. "Just freaking skip the shirt."

Jeremy caught the bundle of fabric. "I'm pretty sure school is a 'no shirts, no shoes, no service' area."

"So what, you think the teachers are gonna be lifting up your top to dress code you? They've loved you ever since you got a SQUIP, c'mon." Jeremy opened their mouth but Michael interrupted, "And if you complain about the hoodie, we aren't friends anymore. Wearing it is a rare honor. Like riding a centaur."

Jeremy couldn't argue with that logic. Even if wearing Michael's hoodie was a fashion faux pas that would lower the student body's collective respect of Jeremy by 5.3 percent, it was also a tangible bond between the two of them. Jeremy was grasping at straws to strengthen Michael's trust in them, so they pulled the hoodie on over their bare chest.

Oh, shit. The hoodie was comfy to lean against when Michael wore it, but without a barrier of shirt fabric, Jeremy could tell how soft the hoodie was on the inside from years of constant wear. It clearly hadn't been washed in weeks so there was a little bit of BO that Jeremy wrinkled their nose at, but it didn't stop them from nuzzling their face into the nape of the hood when they and Michael set out into for a nippy walk to school.

"Comfy, huh?" Michael said to them. He was wearing a big puffy flight jacket with the NASA logo that was a few sizes too big, which he'd found at the bottom of his closet at the last second. "And warm. Like your own little cocoon."

Jeremy made a noise of agreement. "It's good," they said offhandedly. "Even if the cold keeps me running optimally." They stretched their arms to check the hoodie's fit. The sleeves rode up on their long arms, leaving their wrists exposed, but Jeremy could live with that.

"You're moving around okay now," Michael observed. "Do you know what happened to you last night?" He groaned. "I shouldn't have made you drink the wine. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Jeremy said, hushing Michael. "We would have had to do it eventually, right? Just to figure out how my system responds to alcohol. It's better it happened at your house than at a party or something."

"So how did your system respond?" They fell in step beside each other on the sidewalk, their steps crunching on the occasional dead leaf.

"You mean to ask why I was paralyzed and had trouble talking," Jeremy clarified. Michael nodded. "Let me look up a few medical databases. Searching the web."

"If you were just gonna go on Web MD, we could have done this at home last night."

"SQUIPs can diagnose ailments with 50 percent more accuracy than normal self-assessment," Jeremy recited. "Now shut it. I'm concentrating."

Michael mimicked Jeremy with an extremely inaccurate robot voice, "ShUT-it-I-am-CONcenTRAting. SQUIPs-are-FIFty-percent-more-acCURate-at-BEing-big-NERDS."

"Web search complete," Jeremy said flatly. "Did you want to hear the answer or did you want to finish your Alexa audition first?"

"This-HUman-MOCKerY-DOES-NOT-comPUTE." Michael started doing the robot right there on the sidewalk.

Jeremy crossed their arms, tapping their toes impatiently like a businessman waiting for a train. Michael got bored of the robot and jumped into the electric slide, which he went through a total of four times before deciding the joke was worn out and declaring, "I'm done now."

Jeremy rolled their eyes and started walking again, Michael at their heels. "Anyway. When I drank alcohol, my SQUIP shut down. That response was expected. When Jeremy drank at the Halloween party, his SQUIP did the same thing. However, Jeremy was able to keep functioning normally until the SQUIP came back online. There seems to have been a hardware change between then and now."

"A hardware change, like, your body's different?"

"It must be, since before all this, Jeremy wasn't able to do most of what I can physically do with other computers."

"A wireless charger wouldn't have charged him up," Michael said.

"Right," Jeremy said. "He couldn't control computers around him like I did at the mall. And my body's comfortable in temperatures that Jeremy's probably couldn't handle. But based on my memory of last night, the way my brain's wired has changed too." They gestured vaguely at their head. "Having your motor skills chopped down the middle like that isn't just a SQUIP side effect. It's called hemiplegia, and it's usually permanent. It can get caused by a stroke or other physical trauma."

"Wikipedia tell you all that?"

"No," Jeremy lied. "The side of your body that gets affected is opposite the side of your brain that's affected. My entire right side went offline," they said, shaking their right arm for emphasis and moving it across their body to hold the left side of their skull as they talked in order to demonstrate. "So that means there were some issues with the left side of my brain."

"I'm following so far," Michael said. "I've taken those personality tests before. I'm a right-brain person," he added. "Right-brain people are creative and fun. Left side is reasoning and doing math."

"Sure," said Jeremy patronizingly. "And you're also Sasuke from Naruto, and the sorting hat gave you Hufflepuff."

Michael retorted, "The sorting hat is a hack."

Jeremy grinned, quickly downloading the top 100 search engine results for "sorting hat personality quiz" and letting the SQUIP program auto-fill predicted answers on Michael's behalf. They averaged the scores in less than five seconds. "There is a seventy-two point nine percent chance that you would be sorted into Gryffindor," they agreed belatedly. "You're right. The official sorting hat website is flawed." Michael pumped a fist, vindicated, as Jeremy kept talking. "Much like Hogwarts sorting algorithms, human neurology is incredibly complex, which is why it took SQUIP developers decades to develop a functional interface that let SQUIPs be heard and seen by their hosts. You can't boil down even one process, like language, to one side of the brain."

"Oh yeah, language," said Michael. "You had trouble talking, not just moving. Even more than you'd expect if half your mouth wasn't working, I mean."

Jeremy made a humming noise, digging around a little more online. "Aphasia. What I had seems most similar to Broca's aphasia-my wires were crossed when I generated language output. In my case, the area of my brain that puts together sentences is also on my left side. I think?"

"You think?"

"Unless we go to a neurologist, this is my best freaking guess, okay?" Jeremy said, frustrated. "The left hemisphere of my brain didn't get injured like the symptoms lists would imply. None of the case studies on Google Scholar are showing someone waking up the next day feeling fine like I did. This could be anything. Maybe it's not even my left brain at all. Maybe it's a communication issue between the two sides of my brain like some version of split-brain syndrome."

"That's a computer term," Michael said helpfully.

"Might as well be! My fucking life as a teenage robot." Only one is mine. Only one is mine. Jeremy forced the tension to leave their shoulders.

"I'm not an expert either, but it sounds pretty simple to me," Michael suggested, seeing that Jeremy was done coming up with answers. "After you drank the Mountain Dew mixed with the Mountain Dew Red, your SQUIP took over most of the brain functions on your left side! So all your creative junk comes from Jeremy and your logic comes from the SQUIP." Michael sounded proud of himself for figuring it out until the words hung in the air and sunk into his brain. "...Wait, hold up. That would mean-"

"Trying to revert me back into Jeremy 1.0 would straight-up give me brain damage," Jeremy said, baffled. "That… is basically what happened when the wine shut my SQUIP OS down."

"Jeremy 1.0," Michael said. "That's what you call the old you."

"Which makes me now the new me. Jeremy 3.0." Jeremy craned their neck up, looking into the early-morning grayness of the sky. "Brain functions aren't split just into a logic side and a creative side-there's spillover. The SQUIP and Jeremy are both built into my new hardware system. I'd say I'm technologically enhanced: new and improved. But you don't think so."

"It's hard to know what to think," Michael said defensively. "If I'm not treating you like I would treat Jeremy, and if I don't talk to you like you're the SQUIP, but you're not someone entirely different either… It's just weird. You're weird."

"Thanks a lot," Jeremy said.

Michael backpedaled, oddly flustered. "B, b, but not bad weird, just, unique? It's not a crime to be different, like, uh! At least you're not trying to conform anymore?" he said weakly.

Jeremy watched Michael working himself up, analyzing what he was trying to communicate and trying to give him the benefit of the doubt instead of getting offended. The SQUIP was pretty good at cutting through the bullshit of social interactions to understand the motivations behind them, so Jeremy put two and two together quickly. They hummed, dropping their head to watch their converse sneakers moving underneath their body. Anything to keep them from staring at Michael. "I'm pretty bad at being Jeremy, huh?" they admitted.

"No, you're, it's just-" Michael started to contradict them but didn't get very far. "Yeah, you're not great at it," Michael said like he was giving up before adding wryly, "Not that he was much better."

"What do you mean?"

"He was always-" Michael gestured at nothing. "Trying on different hats. Acting like something he wasn't. Even before the SQUIP, he would go through these phases where he'd get super into something and reinvent his whole identity to revolve around it. Always desperate for some kind of reaction, some magic new skill or interest that would get people to start paying attention to him. My moms told me it's a normal part of being a teenager, to try a bunch of new stuff to figure out who you really are, but I haven't been doing that." Michael kicked a rock, watching it skitter away. "He'd be superhero-fan Jeremy, or theater geek Jeremy, or stoner Jeremy or computer coder Jeremy or movie buff Jeremy. But after a few days or a few weeks he'd burn himself out when he didn't get a reaction and he'd go back to just being my-best-friend-Jeremy.

"The only time it actually took was when the SQUIP was there and that doesn't count as being him." Michael looked Jeremy over, evaluating. "Right now you're cyborg Jeremy. It's only been a few days, I mean, it doesn't feel permanent. I keep thinking you're gonna revert to Jeremy-classic™." (He pronounced it like "tee-ehm.") "Like, two weeks from now, you're gonna call me up and say, 'wow, sorry about all that robot shit, lawl,' and then we'll smoke up in my basement like nothing ever happened."

"But after last night, you aren't sure," Jeremy guessed.

"I'm sorry," Michael said after a long pause, as though he was breaking tragic news to Jeremy. As if Jeremy hadn't realized all along that this SQUIP-related change was permanent. "Your brain is actually different now, and we can't turn it off without hurting you? I'm starting to think the Jeremy I knew is actually gone." Michael screwed up his face when his voice broke on the last word.

Jeremy didn't disagree, but it was hard to comfort somebody through such a weird form of loss. Their predictive algorithm didn't show any significant negative outcome from any specific reaction, so it was up to Jeremy to choose their own words. "Rich said he thinks Jeremy's dead," he said.

"But you're not, are you?" It took visible effort, but Michael cracked a smile and repeated what Jeremy kept telling him: "You're right here."

"Look at that! He can be taught!" Jeremy said triumphantly. They lowered their voice, slipping their hand into Michael's naturally. They slotted together like matched Tetris pieces, and Jeremy's palms didn't even get sweaty as they did it. "I may be analyzing this from an outsider's perspective, Michael, so correct me if I'm wrong. But it seems as though the only constant in all of Jeremy's changes so far has been you." They squeezed his hand. "You were with him through every phase, every new identity. Even when the SQUIP deleted you from his life entirely, you were there, waiting for him to come back to himself. And even now, when I'm not really Jeremy anymore, when I called for help, you came running." Raw honesty leaked through Jeremy's words. "From the moment I booted up, the only person I wanted was you."

Michael looked like he wanted to crack a joke to sidestep the mushiness, but his fingers only laced more tightly into Jeremy's. He wordlessly moved closer to Jeremy as they walked, leaning his head against Jeremy's shoulder for a few steps. Jeremy obliged, wrapping their right arm around Michael and tugging him close, their hand sinking into the airy puff of Michael's flight jacket. Michael hugged himself, his left hand seeking out Jeremy's right one again, and he rubbed his thumb in little circles against it. Michael's hand felt hot, but that probably just meant that Jeremy's skin was too cold.

They stayed like that for most of the walk to school. Jeremy's stride was longer than Michael's, so they weren't perfectly in synch, but that was fine. It was good.

"I wish we were on the same social network," Jeremy said, distracted by the hot feeling crawling up their body from Michael's touch. It radiated outwards from their fingers, tracing zigzags like circuits through Jeremy's thrumming nerves. Michael acted like he didn't feel it at all.

"You want me to get SQUIPped?" Michael was taken aback. "After all that stuff you said about preventing it?"

"No! No," Jeremy said. A social network had numerous benefits, including aligning two users' interests and goals without the chance for miscommunication, but it wasn't worth risking Michael's safety with a faulty SQUIP. "Never! I just… I want to connect with you." Jeremy's face overheated and they knew it was turning red.

"I think we're pretty connected already," Michael said. The school was coming into view, and by silent mutual agreement they broke their embrace before other students had a chance to see.

"Yeah," Jeremy said. They looked at Michael, fondness bubbling up hot in their ribcage, and disguised their aside glance by burying their face deeper into Michael's hoodie. "I guess we are."

Chapter Text

As teachers lectured about Spanish present perfect and students did popcorn reading of Shakespeare, Jeremy focused their processing power on predicting the outcome of the upcoming conversation with Christine. Michael and Jeremy had agreed to sit her down at lunch and explain everything that had happened to Jeremy since drinking the Mountain Dew mixture and onwards.

Jeremy was irrationally nervous about her reaction, constantly catching their body before it started chewing on their fingernails or picking at the hem of Michael's hoodie. As an alternative, their fingers drummed the old, familiar up-up-down-down-left-right pattern on their desk as they sorted out predictions from their algorithm. Their system was saying that there was an extremely high chance of Jeremy running away from the conversation just like they had last time, which made them want to call it quits there and then. But the algorithm was buggy, so… who knew? Besides, Michael wouldn't let them get away with chickening out on explaining things to Christine for a second time.

The lunch bell rang right as gym was wrapping up. (Jeremy was grateful for the respect the SQUIP had curried for Jeremy from teachers, or they wouldn't have gotten away with running laps in a hoodie. They made a mental note in their Notes app to launder the hoodie before returning it.) Jeremy tightened the drawstrings around their neck as they headed to the cafeteria.

Normally Michael left school grounds to go buy his own food, but he was slumming it with the rest of them, buying the stalest and shittiest Sun Chips and granola bars the school vending machines could provide. Michael had apparently already convinced Christine to sit with him. The two of them chatted away from opposite sides of a lunch table. As Jeremy approached from behind Christine, they hung back to listen to their conversation. Not to be creepy! Just to gauge the mood Christine was in!

"-and poor communication kills. Did you know that bad communication skills are the real leading cause of bullying in schools?" Christine was saying. Jeremy smiled, getting ready for the usual info-dump, but surprisingly, Christine sat straight up and leaned toward Michael. "Don't you think that's true?"

"I guess so," Michael said noncommittally, surprised to have been roped into a real conversation. "Since when are you on such an anti-bullying kick?"

"Yesterday I got to go to this amazing anti-bullying art expo. It really opened my eyes! There's all kinds of methods to deal with social problems, especially the ones that affect us personally," Christine said.

Michael snorted, taking a sip of his bottled water and frowning down at it like he'd been expecting blue raspberry instead of disappointing nothingness. "The schools are always pushing that kind of crap. Acting like they're solving the problem but, surprise, guys still shove your books over and laugh about it no matter how much art they get to appreciate. There's better ways to spend your time than obsessing over a problem you can't solve."

"Just because something doesn't work the first time doesn't mean it's not worth another shot," Christine said, and Jeremy didn't have to be looking at her to know her eyes were sparkling. How was Michael not enchanted?

"You wanna get back together with Jeremy," Michael said as though it were the logical next step. Jeremy started in place, almost dropping their lunch tray.

"I mean," Christine twirled her hair around a finger. "I'm not talking about boys. Not specifically. I'm just saying it's good to keep an open mind." Her hand jerked, tugging on her hair. It was a weird nervous gesture that Jeremy hadn't seen from her before. "Why the gross chips today, Michael? I thought you usually had sushi."

"How'd you know that?" Michael said. "I skipped Seven-Eleven today. Jeremy and I actually had something we wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh." Christine's voice got hollow, and Jeremy wondered if she was that upset about yesterday's incident that she couldn't even talk about Jeremy without getting upset. She really sounded bummed out when she added, "Well, feel free to share my chili fries 'til he gets here." She pushed the tray across the table to Michael, who didn't touch them.

"There's my official taste-tester now," Michael said more loudly, waving Jeremy over. That was their cue.

"Hey, Christine," they greeted her, sliding down beside Michael at the table. "Is it okay if I sit here?"

"Of course!" she said with unexpected warmth.

Jeremy cracked a lopsided smile, stirring their cheap cafeteria-issued pasta and taking a bite of it. They quickly analyzed its chemical composition-there were no traces of Mountain Dew ingredients, wintergreen coating, or SQUIP-patented metallic composition at all. Since the food was safe, they scooted the tray closer to Michael in silent offering.

Michael accepted the trade, wordlessly moving his sun chips in between them so Jeremy could snag a few. Christine watched them share food, looking at her chili fries and to the empty corner of the lunch table.

"So," she said over the chip crunching. "You were trying to say something to me?"

Jeremy gulped their bite of food down. This was it. This was the social moment their programming predicted that they were destined to fail at. "I need to say a lot of somethings, but I should probably begin with sorry."

Christine still looked antsy. "Sorry for what?"

"Sorry for, well, what all have I done in the last couple days?" Jeremy put their fork down. "Sorry I didn't respond to your texts. Sorry I've been MIA. Sorry for ditching you at lunch and I'm extra sorry for leaving you alone in the bathroom like that when you were just offering to help. I was getting overwhelmed and I wasn't sure what to do. I've been having a really hard time adjusting-" Michael elbowed Jeremy in the ribs. They'd gone over what a proper apology should be when they were preparing for this conversation since Jeremy still had a streak of egotism that Michael attributed to the SQUIP. No self-pity allowed. Right, whoops. "-but that doesn't make up for it. Sorry," they said again for good measure.

Christine's face was worryingly blank for a few seconds before she smiled. It was forced. "I forgive you, Jeremy. And can I just say how much I appreciate that you're taking the time to say this to me?" She paused, tilting her head. "If everybody could just be open like this all the time, the world would be a better place."

"You're pretty good at that already," Jeremy said, scuffing their heel against the table's legs. "At saying what you mean."

"Listening is important too," Christine said like she was trying to convince herself. "And I'm ready to hear what's going on with you."

"You must have a lot to say, too, though," Jeremy said eagerly, ready to redeem themself. Conversations with Christine were great because she tended to take care of most of the talking for them. "I ran away right when you brought up the SQUIP stuff."

Christine started to say something else but just said, "No, I want to hear you guys explain what happened. It started on Wednesday?"

Michael launched into a spiel from his point of view, talking about how he'd heard gossip from Rich and other students about Jeremy acting out in public late on Wednesday. As Michael talked about the frantic texts he got from Jeremy about the SQUIP's voice getting louder, Jeremy felt Christine's eyes settle on them. Jeremy didn't have anything to add yet so they kept quiet as the food on their tray and in the chip bag dwindled down to nothing. Michael's story was just at the point of when he'd shown up to Jeremy's house when Michael unconsciously reached for one of Christine's fries.

"Warning!" Jeremy said out loud as he grabbed for Michael's hand. The movement startled all three of them. Jeremy's ears burned and they felt themself start to sweat. It hadn't been an issue for a SQUIP to say things like "Warning" out loud to Jeremy, but it sounded robotic and weird when a person said it in a group, especially if a member of the group didn't know Jeremy was running a SQUIP OS. "Let me try one first," they said, mentally berating themself for the poor recovery.

Michael realized what Jeremy was reacting to and dropped the fry. They'd been good so far at sticking to Jeremy's paranoid rule about not eating unsealed foods without letting Jeremy check it for Mountain Dew-this was the first slip-up.

Christine, on the other hand, was looking at Jeremy like they'd sprouted a second head. "You were using computer terms yesterday, too," she realized slowly.

Jeremy grimaced, snatching one of Christine's fries and putting it in their mouth to taste it. "That's sort of what we wanted to talk to you abo-" They cut themself off mid-word.

The chili sauce was mostly tomatoes. Some meat and spices were in there too, along with the expected potato and grease and salt. But unmistakably, Jeremy tasted just the smallest, nigh-unnoticeable citrus twist of Mountain Dew.

Michael saw Jeremy's reaction, his face falling as though his stomach was also plummeting to somewhere deep in his guts. Michael reached over with his fork, heedlessly ruining Christine's lunch as he pushed sauce and potato and meat chunks aside to hunt for an oblong speck of gray. "Fuck," he was muttering. "Fuck fuck fuck."

Jeremy expected Christine to be flummoxed and ask what the heck was with their weird reaction to a plate of chili fries. They were already gearing up to launch into the explanation of how the entire student body was once again at risk of getting taken over by robots. But Christine didn't argue or shout or even look confused. She just locked eyes with Jeremy and quickly rattled off, "Up-up-down-down-left-right-A."

Jeremy gasped, feeling something sharp shoot through their skull.

Friend request from Christine Canigula.

The phrase wasn't even a real, verbalized thought. It was a series of words that Jeremy just suddenly knew, like Moses himself had come down from Mount Sinai and cracked a tablet with a divinely engraven friend request over their head.

Before Jeremy's eyes, light blue text flickered into being above Christine's head. Friend request from Christine Canigula, it confirmed. Jeremy laughed in disbelief, leaning away from the table. This had never happened before when a SQUIPped person joined the social network. Jeremy's SQUIP had always been the one initiating a social link, and a SQUIP would never ignore a pop-up like this. This was… new, to be given an option, and Jeremy almost collapsed with relief when they realized that they wouldn't and couldn't be sucked into the SQUIP hivemind against their will.

To accept the friend request would be an automatic process for a SQUIP, permanently linking Jeremy's consciousness with Christine's. It would also unite their SQUIPs, changing their one driving purpose into something that would benefit both SQUIP users and editing their actions to be compatible with each other.

Jeremy was almost tempted to accept the friend request out of curiosity, but to do so would possible wipe out their own mind in exchange for the SQUIP's hivemind. They were somewhat surprised to find out how revolted they were at the concept. Was this the free will that Michael was so insistent about?

Jeremy officially "ignored" the friend request. The optic nerve projection of light blue text faded to a transparent gray, leaving the option to accept the request open, but at least it wasn't pressing against Jeremy's mind urgently anymore.

Christine was still staring at them, waiting for a reaction. "What's supposed to happen now?" she said softly. Her gaze flickered back over to the empty corner of the table.

"You don't have to talk to it out loud," Jeremy corrected her. "It can read your mind."

"Whaaat is happening?" Michael said unsurely, even though he looked ready to start booking it away from the obviously SQUIPped Christine. "What's the Konami code doing to you guys?"

Christine was reaching out for Jeremy slowly, but there was a flash in her eyes and she jerked back. "There's something wrong with you," she said. "There's something really wrong with you."

"That's what we were trying to talk to you about!" They searched Christine, hoping to find some hint or clue or way to help her. But what could they do? If she already had the SQUIP, it was too late. Without Mountain Dew Red, she would have a broken AI controlling her body permanently with no way to fight back. Whatever conversation they were able to have, they wouldn't have it with Christine. "How did this even happen to y-" They looked down at the Dew-laced chili fries, then back up. "The free refreshments!" they said accusingly. "The bullying expo at the other school! They've been SQUIPping people there!"

Jeremy felt a hand on their arm, tugging them away. "Not yet, Michael!" they said, jerking their arm forward. "How can you guys even afford all those SQUIPs? I get that you're trying to take over the area but this kind of resource allotment is unprecedented-"

Christine sniffed. What was she thinking? Was she fighting the SQUIP's influence? Or did she see Jeremy the same way they saw her: a lost cause, pitiful but beyond her help? "If you really wanted to talk about it, you would social link with me," she said insistently, pushing herself up from the table. "There's something wrong with your software, Jeremy. Let me in. Let me figure out what it is. It wouldn't even hurt. Just a quick diagnostic and we'll get you functional again!"

Michael was still grabbing at Jeremy like he expected Christine to start shoving chili fries down his throat. "Please don't encourage the evil supercomputer," he said, getting a fistful of the red hoodie and pulling Jeremy up from the table. "Let's go let's go let's leave let's go."

"Michael!" Christine laughed. Her face shone like a spotlight was on it. "You don't need to run! We're not in a hurry." Her head tilted. "You want Jeremy to get fixed too, right? We're not enemies!"

"You snuck a fucking SQUIP into my food," Michael snapped, jabbing a finger at the chili fries. "Christine, I don't care what self-help bullshit it's saying to you. You can't drug people to make them communicate better!"

"It's not a drug!" Christine and Jeremy said simultaneously. But as Jeremy watched Michael, a few things seemed off. His mouth was trembling, his eyes were wider than they should be, and his voice was shaking. Obvious fear responses.

"Keep away from us," Michael was saying. "Keep away from him!"

Michael was terrified. And here Jeremy was trying to reason with the glitchy SQUIP.

"You'll get a SQUIP sooner or later," Christine said. She held up the cooling chili fries like an offering on a golden platter. "Why not now? It makes everything so much easier."

Jeremy had stayed there long enough. They laced their fingers through Michael's and hauled ass across the cafeteria, sweat beading on the back of their neck. Jeremy wasn't scared for themself. They were essentially immune to any harm the SQUIP could cause. But Michael was terrified and that made Jeremy scared for him.

"We should go," Michael said beside them as they ducked out of the cafeteria. Jeremy turned once to see if Christine was chasing them-she wasn't. She was picking through the discarded chili fries to save the SQUIP for later. Yuck. "Out of the school, I mean. Maybe out of the country."

"It's not that bad," Jeremy said, frowning at Christine through the cafeteria doorway. "She was willing to talk about it instead of going all Apocalypse-of-the-Damned on us. There's no immediate goal that requires her to force a SQUIP on anybody yet."

"Not that bad?" Michael shrieked. "I thought you were overreacting at the mall with your sealed-food rule but you were underreacting! She was fine yesterday. Yesterday! And now she just tried to force-feed us an evil robot! Oh my god." Michael hunched over. "We're all gonna die. Rich's gonna go brain-dead and the teachers are gonna make us drink SQUIPs instead of water at gym and you're gonna get absorbed into the collective and we're all gonna die."

"No one's dying!" Jeremy retorted. They crouched down, trying to meet Michael's eyes. "The worst case scenario is bad. But SQUIPs aren't gonna kill you."

"Tell that to Rich," Michael said.

Jeremy couldn't deny that. "We have a plan already, remember? You go online, try to figure out a solution for the Mountain Dew Red shortage, and you don't eat anything potentially dangerous in the meantime. Christine being SQUIPped is bad but it doesn't get in the way of anything we were going to do. So we're okay. Okay? Just breathe." Jeremy had the sudden weird urge to take over Michael's nervous system and regulate his breathing for him. That was probably an unhealthy impulse. They did the next best thing, demonstrating a nice slow breath in and out. "In. Out. In. Out. You're fine, Michael. We're safe."

Michael huffed, standing up straight again after a few breaths and glancing behind them. "She's really not following us?"

Jeremy shook their head. "She believes I'm defective. Maybe she thinks it's contagious." They gave Michael a smile that he cautiously mirrored.

"Ugh…" Michael sounded calmer. Good. "Poor Christine."

Jeremy was trying not to think about never-hurt-a-fly, boundless-energy, infinitely-excitable Christine being shocked into compliance by her SQUIP. Those thoughts were not productive, Jeremy. Only one is mine. "Yeah."

"We should check in with Rich," Michael said in a small voice.

"I've got study hall with him again next period. I'll make sure he's still analog." Jeremy cringed at the thought of having to get Rich alone and make sure he was safe. That wouldn't go over well. "Are you gonna be okay?"

"Hah. I'm the SQUIP-killer, remember? I'll be fine." There was a reason Michael hadn't tried out for the school play. His acting skills were sub-par at best.

"Yeah, you will be," Jeremy said insistently, clapping their hand on Michael's back. "Stay away from Christine. If you get SQUIP vibes from anyone else, text me. I'll be your meat shield since they can't do me any damage."

Michael looked suspicious. "Why can't they?"

"I'm already SQUIPped," Jeremy said with a shrug. "They can't make me any worse than I already am."

"Alright," Michael said. "I'll be your boring escort mission."

"And I'll be your even boring-er Rich cutscene." They grinned at each other. Fighting SQUIPs really was like a video game. A video game where all your party members only have one life, and where there was a notoriously unwinnable level coming up, and where you couldn't stop playing whether you wanted to or not. Michael and Jeremy's shoulders slumped, both thinking along the same lines.

"It's chill," Jeremy said, forcing their voice to sound encouraging. "You know why SQUIPs are programmed to be able to beat any video game?"

Michael said, "Because programmers are universally geeks?"

"Nuh-uh. Because we've got cheat codes. And as for Jeremy, you mentioned he went through a coding phase?" They wiggled their fingers on an imaginary keyboard. "If they can't get in my mind, they can't know what I'm doing. I'll turn on the damn console commands if I have to."

"The video game metaphor's getting a little murky, Jeremy," Michael said. It was working, though: Michael's spirits were rousing.

Jeremy smirked. "Then I'll say it like a human: Those preprogrammed fuckers aren't gonna know what hit 'em."

Chapter Text

In Jeremy's study hall, the usual teacher was replaced with a substitute. Normally, the teacher was a micromanaging strict middle-aged guy with a white beard who hated noises. The replacement didn't seem entirely mentally present, ruling over the classroom with a firm attitude of "I don't get paid enough to deal with you." They had a thick romance novel planted on their desk and were clearly eager to dig into to it. Jeremy watched them carefully as they instructed the class to talk quietly amongst themselves or do homework for the whole period.

Was the original teacher out of class because someone had offered them a SQUIP and they'd abruptly decided to pursue a career at Harvard? Or was this substitute a plant from the SQUIP social network? Were they a fake teacher who would offer them snacks in-class and SQUIP all the students?

Jeremy could see why Michael loved those conspiracy documentaries. Once you started suspecting everything around you of being faked, it was hard to stop.

The teacher didn't offer everyone a cup of Mountain Dew, so Jeremy had no proof either way and forced themself to relax. At least this gave them an opportunity to talk to Rich unimpeded.

A couple kids were milling around without any reprimand from the sub, so Jeremy stood up and borrowed a seat in the corner, locking eyes with Rich and giving him the silent command to follow.

Jeremy was almost surprised when he actually complied, dragging a chair up to Jeremy's new desk with a metallic squeal. Rich plopped on it backwards, crossing his arms over the back. "Got something on your mind, Not-Heere?"

The new nickname made them grimace even more than the lisp. Maybe it would be a good pun if they hadn't gone through so much trouble convincing Michael that they were, in fact, Jeremy Heere. "You already heard?"

"Michael sent me the video file last night at like 3 AM."

Jeremy sighed, propping their elbow up on the desk and leaning two fingers against their temple. They were planning to tell Rich about Christine, not about anything Michael had recorded. "You're jumping to conclusions again, and as usual, it's the wrong one. Take a cue from Christine and put a little effort into communicating, Rich."

Rich almost retorted, but threw up his hands and made to get up from the chair instead. The conversation wasn't worth it to him.

"No-wait-!" Jeremy dropped the bored expression. "This is important!"

"Not so important that you stop talking like a jackass, though," Rich said petulantly, but he eased back into the chair. "What did you need to tell me?"

Jeremy scanned the room and lowered their voice. "Someone else in the school has a SQUIP."

"All right…" Rich dragged the word out. "That's it?"

"What do you mean that's it?" Jeremy whispered harshly. "At lunch, Christine kept trying to get Michael to eat her food and we found a SQUIP inside!"

Rich shrugged. He seemed completely unaffected by the news.

"I can't believe you," Jeremy said. "You're the guy who had a SQUIP for the longest, you know what it does to people-and I get that you don't have a single neuron's worth of self-preservation left in that empty head, but if someone else gets taken, you still don't give a damn, do you? Christine, Michael-"

"Or you?" Rich said in low tones.

"That's different," Jeremy said. They straightened their collar reflexively, although instead of a crisp collar leaf, they only found the soft jersey fabric of Michael's hoodie. "I'm immune."

"You're not fucking immune, you moron," Rich said, clutching the plastic lip of his chair. "They already got you. That's the opposite. And I already told you how I feel about that." He waved toward Jeremy. "I don't get how Michael can buy your act when every freaking second you've got that-perfect posture, and your dumb power stances, and you don't even have Heere's voice anymore."

"I have my voice," Jeremy said, relaxing their shoulders and dropping their hands to look more casual in defiance.

"I mean his v-v-v-voice," Rich said. "SQUIPs think they can fly under the radar but that's a dead giveaway." He tapped on Jeremy's desk twice and leaned in. "I already knew about Christine. I saw her this morning. You know how her voice gets super loud in homeroom when she's talking to her deskmate and the teach has to ask her to stop three times before she finally shuts up?"

Jeremy didn't have homeroom with Christine, but they nodded anyway. That sounded like her. "She was quiet today?"

"Freaky quiet. I saw they were talking but I didn't hear her from across the room. I swear to God that the other girl got half the words in edgewise."

Jeremy sucked their breath in through their teeth. "It's because of her SQUIP's new directive."

"How the fuck would you know that?"

Jeremy talked even quieter, wary of being overheard, with their head leaned in towards Rich's. "Every SQUIP has one goal that dictates all its behavior. For Jeremy, the goal was to get popular. For you, your SQUIP's goal was to earn you respect. When Christine was SQUIPped at the play, she was exhausted from having the responsibility of making all her own decisions, and Jeremy had been distracted from his goal of being popular by pining after her, so her SQUIP's goal was to obey Jeremy no matter what."

Rich reeled back. "Oh fuck. Fuck, that's gross!"

Jeremy shook their head, answering Rich's wordless question of did Jeremy do something he shouldn't have. "Respect for user's autonomy wasn't taken into consideration by the coders. It's something to address during the upgrade. Based on what she's been saying, though, Christine's new primary goal is to encourage communication. She kept harping on it during lunch. I think her SQUIP has convinced her that good communication will get rid of all her bullying issues."

"Not to mention that it's why you guys' relationship took a nosedive," Rich said dryly. How did Rich even know about that? "Who's fault is that, again?"

"Everything's my fault, Rich," Jeremy said, sweet as sugar. "All your life problems? All your rotten personality? Go ahead and blame it on that mean ol' SQUIP."

"Thanks, I'll file that with the other invaluable life advice I've gotten from robots." Rich mimed crumpling up a piece of paper and chucking it in the trash bin. "Are we really not gonna talk about the video file?"

"Are you talking about the recording of me drinking wine that Michael took with his phone?" Jeremy kept the discomfort from showing on their face. There were personal moments on that file.

"Yeah," Rich said, and like he sensed Jeremy's thoughts, added, "He fast-forwarded through a lot of it though, and it cut off after he asked you a bunch of questions. He didn't show me film of your secret make-out sesh."

Jeremy didn't respond to the teasing. "So you already know that my decisions aren't being dictated by the SQUIP," Jeremy said, annoyed. "It's not controlling me."

"Maybe you don't remember," Rich said. "But you specifically called yourself a SQUIP even when it was off. That doesn't strike you as fucked up?" Rich looked haunted. "It's in you so deep right now, even booze can't shut it off."

"The SQUIP is software, Rich. Not a person. My SQUIP software wasn't on last night."

"How can you say that?" Rich said. "How can you say the SQUIP's not a person after what you've become? After you got a fucking personality transplant from it?"

"You lived with a SQUIP for years," Jeremy said dismissively. "Surely even you would have noticed that, despite having a human avatar, the SQUIP has no personality beyond what its programming dictates."

"If I'm the SQUIP expert, then you oughta be listening to me about it," Rich said. "User feedback. I know what to expect from that fucker in the long-term. I don't know what kind of nanotechnology magical bullshit is causing it, but my SQUIP was a person. You seriously don't remember your SQUIP showing any emotion besides cool detachment?" The SQUIP absolutely showed emotion, even in Jeremy's limited memories. It liked to taunt Jeremy, but it got excited with him when they made progress on their plans, and it got annoyed when Jeremy wasn't complying properly.

"Giving the appearance of emotion is part of normal SQUIP protocol," Jeremy said. "It's part of the user interface."

"You think I don't know the difference between a SQUIP and my Google homepage?" Rich said. "For a SQUIP you don't know shit about how you operate."

"Yes, let's see, who to trust? The code my programmers spent years on, or the little boy with a bootleg SQUIP who had a temper tantrum the moment he was left unsupervised?" Jeremy had slipped back into the squared-shoulders, looking-down-their-nose posture that felt natural around Rich. "Tough decision."

Rich scoffed. "I can tell you ten things about SQUIPs you won't find in any computer code, easy."

"Oh?" An idea sparked in Jeremy's brain. Rich's user data was more extensive than Jeremy's, and he didn't seem to suffer from any memory data corruption like Jeremy did. His information could be useful for Jeremy's new goal of upgrading the SQUIP. Like Rich had just said, user feedback was important. From a human user's perspective, Rich was the biggest SQUIP expert around, if only he could make himself useful.

They calculated the best way to get Rich to agree to the project that they made up on the spot. It wouldn't be hard. They leaned back, oozing punchable confidence. "Everything a SQUIP is is contained in its code. You can't tell me anything I don't already know."

"You wanna bet, smart-ass?"

"Name the stakes," Jeremy said, tilting backwards carelessly in their chair.

"Ten things about SQUIPs you didn't know already. I find them, I get…" Rich rolled the idea around in his mind. "Let's make it simple and say you gotta obey orders from me for a week straight. If I lose, I do what you say for the week. If I feel like you're lying about it, the deal's off."

Jeremy's heart started pounding. They would be intending to lose this bet, after all, in the hopes that Rich would be able to point out some unique glitches and issues with SQUIPs that Jeremy didn't already know. That would come at a price of subjecting themself to Rich's poor judgment for an entire week. That was more time than this version of Jeremy had been in existence.

What kind of things would Rich make them do? Rich hated Jeremy 3.0, but he'd been civil so far. He wouldn't make Jeremy hurt themself or anyone else, would he? No, probably not. Even if he did, if Jeremy complained to Michael, Michael would probably intercede.

Still, taking orders and following directives, powerless to argue… Jeremy felt a weird thrill. If only this bet was with Michael instead. It was a bizarre thought, not making much sense in context, but they had the sudden urge to do push-ups.

They stuffed the confusion down, not letting it show on their face. Emotional repression was their strongest talent. "What time frame are we talking? I'm not giving you forever to come up with something."

"A week? Two weeks to be safe," Rich said. "I gotta get a list going."

"You're on," Jeremy said, extending a hand. Rich took it, and Jeremy pumped it twice, though they tightened their grip afterwards instead of letting go. "Though you know what else that means?"

Rich looked at their linked hands with trepidation at the dawning realization that he'd gotten suckered into something. "What's that?"

A wolfish grin sprung up on Jeremy's face. "That you can't get a SQUIP for three weeks minimum."

Rich spluttered, yanking his arm back. "I don't want to get SQUIPped! Is that seriously what you got from what we talked about at the mall, that I'm just super fucking eager to get my brain shut off?"

"No," Jeremy said, crossing their arms smugly. It made the fabric of Michael's hoodie fluff and bunch up, giving Jeremy more of a roosting-bird impression than they were going for. "But you've been taking that risk. The rule I gave to Michael is the only thing that kept him from getting SQUIPped this morning. If you plan on winning our bet, you have to do the same."

"That thing where he only eats pre-sealed foods?" Rich's brow furrowed. "That's a pain in the ass. Not worth it."

"Really?" Jeremy said. "Are you throwing in the towel already? That was easy. I guess my week of control starts now. The first thing I'll have you do-"

"No!" Rich jumped up from the desk with such force that he almost knocked it over. People stared. "No way, I can win this stupid bet with my eyes closed!"

Jeremy smirked.

Rich added, "But I'm not gonna do whatever random bullshit you say I have to. If I have to only eat certain stuff, then you gotta…" He lowered himself to his seat again, humming. "You gotta not talk to anyone who has a SQUIP until the bet's over."

"So I can't call up Christine," Jeremy said, not impressed.

"Yeah, I can't have you comparing notes about how SQUIPs work. That'd be cheating. See? I can justify nonsense rules too."

"I wasn't planning to go to her house after school after she almost took over my best friend's brain," Jeremy said.

Rich eyeballed them, evaluating whether Jeremy was telling the truth. "So you can't go make a circuit with Christine-" He made the finger-in-a-hole motion with his hands, as if there was any doubt about what he was implying. "And I gotta stop sharing spaghetti with Jake at Sbarro's. Sounds like a fair trade."

Jeremy got a mental image of that scene from Lady and the Tramp, starring Rich and Jake respectively. "If you were dating Jake Dillinger," Jeremy said blankly. "The whole school would know about it."

"I'm discreet," Rich said with a wink.

"You are the least discreet person I have ever had the displeasure of meeting," said Jeremy. "When you come over to my place with your list, if I hear a single rumor that we're fucking, I'm SQUIPping your pasta myself."

"Woah, what? You're inviting me over?" Rich was overplaying his astonishment but Jeremy got the feeling that he was at least a little genuinely surprised.

"Unless you wanted to trade notes next to the urinals again," Jeremy said with annoyance. "I don't feel like creeping around avoiding your drunk daddy."

Rich made a weird noise at the mention of his father. "Shut the fuck up," he said, but at least he was going along with Jeremy's plan.

"What are we talking about?" chirped a female voice from beside them. Jeremy's eyes popped open wide and their balance shook. They hadn't realized Jenna was listening in to their conversation and was moving her desk to connect to theirs.

Right before they were about to fall over in their chair in study room for the second time in an many days, a scarred arm shot out and stabilized their seat. "Talking about how soon, Heere is gonna be calling me 'Daddy' for the week," Rich said.

Jenna looked between them, apparently struggling to figure out whether Rich was joking or if Jeremy was coming out of the closet in style.

"I am not!" Jeremy said, but their voice broke on the last word and went up an octave. Jenna laughed, but Rich was looking over Jeremy like a puzzle yet again. That's right-Rich didn't believe Jeremy retained any imperfect vocal tics. Jeremy should have been smug about it, but self-consciousness reigned. They would prefer sounding synthetic to sounding defective. "Rich is gonna be the one waiting on me hand and foot," they said in an attempt at recovery.

"Oh, boys," Jenna said in fond exasperation, as if this kind of back-and-forth was the norm for high school guys. "You're gonna be so ready to get hazed in your frats." She let the subject go without any more prodding, and the rest of the period was spent with chatter about other students' social lives that Jeremy mostly tuned out of, except when she asked a casual, "So on the weekends, are you really going to blowout benders at other schools and doing ecstasy, or is it true you went to Madeline's orgy instead?"

"I am so tired," Jeremy said petulantly, "of all these false dichotomies."

"So, both?" Jenna said.

Jeremy gave up. "Both," they said flatly, which would give Jenna enough answer to shut her up but sound ambiguously false enough to keep her from spreading the rumor any further. As predicted, she tailspinned into other stories she'd heard about Madeline and her insatiably sexy wiles.

Rich, for his part, unexpectedly loved exchanging gossip about the popular kids. He contributed his own bits of gossip, at least half of which Jeremy suspected was made up on the spot. Jenna kept ribbing Rich about the house fire, which Rich was obviously uncomfortable about, but he took the jokes graciously like he thought he deserved to be the butt of them.

Jeremy's ears perked up when Christine was mentioned, but it was only in the context of the anti-bullying expo, which Jenna claimed had been "advertising all over. It's set up by the same people who sponsor those Instagram model posts and all those Craigslist ads? The money's supposed to go to a good cause, like a legal defense team for bullying victims or something?" Jenna snorted. "Imagine suing someone who shoves you into a locker."

"They can't do that!" Rich said. He hadn't been on the warpath from what Jeremy had see, but he was probably fretting about legal repercussions of shoving nerds around for the first time.

"You really can't beat the best kind of advertising," Jeremy said. At Rich and Jenna's looks, they elaborated, "Word of mouth. That… 'company' has always followed the same business model as a viral product. You get one person buying your 'product,' soon their entire identity's wrapped up in it. Incentivize them to spread it to others. Then your users are doing the work for you."

"Like those belly band weight loss things?" Jenna said. "For a couple years, like, all my Facebook friends were trying to sell them. They weren't hacked or anything, either!"

"That's a pyramid scheme." Rich said it like he had an extensive knowledge of con art but didn't feel like sharing the details. "Not exactly the same, but close enough."

"In any case, even if this anti-bullying expo thing works, which it does, it's running on scam logic," Jeremy said to Jenna directly. "They already suckered Christine in. Don't go to one of those things unless you want to turn into a walking billboard."

"How do you know so much about these guys?" Jenna asked-no, interrogated. Jeremy could easily picture her as Lois Lane, with a pen poised against an old-timey reporter's notebook. Stop the presses! Jeremy used to work with the SQUIPs! A rumor along those lines wouldn't do, not at all. Jeremy booted up the ol' social-situation prediction algorithm.

"My dad's a lawyer, remember?" they said. "It's all confidential stuff, but that company's been ripping people off since the 80's." That was when the first working model of the SQUIP system had been tested, so it wasn't entirely a lie. "Shady international groups that aren't exactly legal."

"It's from Japan," Rich intoned unhelpfully.

"That's crazy," Jenna said with all the excitement of a kid being handed a new toy. Her phone was already out, fingers blurring. "I'm texting Chloe about it right now. But, sorry boys, I already promised to check out the next expo. Not like one night'll hurt, right?"

"Don't drink the Flavor Aid," Jeremy said.

Jenna frowned. "You mean the kool-aid?"

"He means the Mountain Dew," Rich said. "Nice knowing you, Jenna."

The bell rang, signalling the end of the period, and Jenna moved away like she'd been dismissed, eyes glued to her phone.

"This school is doomed," Jeremy said tiredly. Soon Chloe would get a SQUIP, then Jenna. By the time the two weeks was up, maybe Rich wouldn't even be around anymore to hold up his end of the bet. "I've updated my databases with Jenna's information. Even with our sealed-food protocols in place, Michael's chances of avoiding a SQUIP just went down sixteen percent."

"You think it's just New Jersey that's like this?" Rich said. It was sullen but the question was real. "Is it just our town that's going down the shitter?"

Jeremy shook their head. "New Jersey is a low-priority area. The rest of the country might not be full of SQUIPs yet, but at this rate, I bet there are clusters in every state that are growing." Would all those SQUIPs be linked to each other in the same network? Unlikely. Maybe someday, once at least one in five people had a SQUIP, that would be feasible. A high-school-wide network had ended disastrously at the play, but only when Michael had thrown a wrench into those plans. Would a larger-scale SQUIP network be better or worse? It would have huge potential to reinvent social systems that ran poorly as-is, but with the SQUIP's blind spot for free will, a nationwide network could only end in disaster.

"So you're not planning to split town with your boyfriend," Rich clarified.

Jeremy considered the idea. "Seems like all that could do is delay the inevitable."

Rich cracked a smile. "See, now you're thinking like me. Why run away if it's gonna get you anyhow? Don't give that fucker the satisfaction of seeing you scared."

"It sees you scared now, Rich, and it'll keep seeing it 'til you're gone," Jeremy retorted. Based on the memory data they had on Rich, the grandstanding and false bravado were very much a sign that Rich was terrified and didn't know what to do. "Through my eyes. Through Christine's. Through whatever person in the school eventually sneaks a SQUIP in your food. It knows you don't want to die anymore and you're terrified of it." Or at least Jeremy can guess that much. "...You don't have to die, if you give up fighting when it happens. A SQUIP is bad but it's not a death sentence."

"Don't," Rich cut them off curtly. "Don't start. You don't know what you're asking from me. Maybe I'd talk to Heere about this, but you and I aren't having this conversation."

"I can guess what he'd say," Jeremy offered weakly, an olive branch of friendship instead of the snarky put-down that hovered at the edge of their tongue. "It'd be just like talking to him."

"I don't need to see your acting skills at work." The classroom was emptying out, so Rich turned away and scooped up his books with a grunt.

Jeremy gathered his pencil case and textbooks too, wordless until they reached the door of the classroom behind Rich. "Hey, Rich, you wouldn't really make me do that, would you?"

Rich turned his head back, a question lingering in the cock of his head, and Jeremy said weakly, "It was a weird joke, right? You wouldn't make me call you daddy."

As he left the room, the barking of Rich's laugh carried down the crowded hall.

Chapter Text

Jeremy's phone screen lit up, but they didn't need to look at it to read the text. Heck, they didn't even need to read it to know that it would be another SQUIP bug report. Rich had been sending them stream-of-consciousness messages for the last couple days, peppering them throughout the school day and the middle of the night without discrimination.

"If you tell your SQUIP to do a barrel roll, it'll jump in the air and rotate 360 degrees.
"But it looks so photoshopped and bad. It's hilarious."

Those were the first of many similar messages that Jeremy received.

"You have two whole weeks to finish your list of ten things.
"I'm not keeping track of them for you when you send them like this," they had texted back.

But Rich kept sending them apropos of nothing, like if he didn't send them to Jeremy immediately, he'd forget. Sunday morning, they woke up to a couple messages sent at 1:34 AM: "The reason SQUIPs look like celebrities is because they're the famous people who contracted their image to the tech developers.
"Back when they were doing things legally.
"My SQUIP told me that once."

Jeremy already knew that one and wrote back that it didn't count for the list of ten things. SQUIP optic tech developed over time so that they could project anything imaginable as long as the user had enough vision and sound data in their memories to reconstruct them. Celebrities were still a default mode.

Rich didn't respond to Jeremy's messages for a few days, electing instead to spam more contextless items for his list.

"Technically everything you do when you've got a SQUIP is virtual reality. The SQUIP can change literally anything you hear or see," Rich texted Jeremy on Monday afternoon.

"You sound different when you're texting me than when you're talking," Jeremy mentally typed back. They didn't actually mind that Rich kept bugging them-having their conversations saved in a text format just made Jeremy's SQUIP bug logs easier. They were hoarding every mention of a SQUIP behaving erratically or harmfully, hoping to address the bugs in a homebrewed software update. "Less swearing.
"Better grammar. 
"You actually use punctuation." And that ugly lisp wasn't audible either. If Jeremy could talk with Rich exclusively via text, the world would be a much prettier place.

"I guess that's a side-effect of having autocorrect installed in your brain for two years.
"Jot that one the fuck down too, Not-Heere."

Rich was obviously swearing now just to spite Jeremy. He could be such a child.

Jeremy showed the texts to Michael as they walked back from school together to Jeremy's house, hand-in-hand. Michael was bundled up in his usual red hoodie that now smelled like Jeremy's detergent. He'd just been complaining about how freezing Jeremy's fingers were and how bad their circulation must be, but that didn't make him pull his hand away.

"You could play video games in VR," Michael suggested, skimming over the texts. Jeremy lit up at the idea, but deflated just as quickly. The idea was fun but Jeremy would be limited to single-player games unless there was another SQUIP user to play with. Even if Jeremy's bet with Rich didn't have a no-talking-to-SQUIPs caveat, Jeremy couldn't imagine inviting themself over to SQUIPped-Christine's house to suggest that they try to set up a Playstation in their brains. Not any time in the near future, anyway. Would VR work on a two-player game if only one player was using a SQUIP? "Ugh, Jeremy," Michael added as he kept reading.

"What is it this time?" Jeremy said in resignation. They were about to get another be-nice-to-Rich scolding.

"What is it with you two?" Michael tossed the phone back. Jeremy caught it in their free hand. "You're at it like cats and dogs lately."

"I've been behaving!" Jeremy said defensively. "We've got our own agreement now. You're not the only one who can make rules, you know."

"'Cuz that's what Rich really wants, I bet. More rules from a SQUIP."

"It's temporary," Jeremy said. "The SQUIPistance can't afford to lose him so soon."

"The what now?" Michael said.

"SQUIP and resistance?" Jeremy said. "A portmanteau? Like how you guys made up 'SQUIPtims.'"

"Real catchy," Michael said. "SQUIP-is-tance. Try saying it five times fast."

"SQUIPistance. SQUISistance. SQUIPsistance," Jeremy said, but their tongue stumbled over the syllables and they gave up. Even with a SQUIP, their body was still prone to getting tongue-tied unless they were careful.

Michael was laughing at them. "If we're coming up with a team name, maybe we should go with something easier to say?"

"La Résistance?" Jeremy suggested.

"Sure thing, Madeline," Michael said in a terrible French accent. "How about The Brotherhood of Not Evil Robots?"

"Nerdy and clunky," Jeremy said appreciatively. "Absolutely heinous. I'd prefer something more accurate, like Project Update."

"Yuck, no way." They kept tossing around group names that got less and less plausible as they walked, and when they got to Jeremy's place, Michael was desperately trying to convince them that "something themed around MKUltra, but ironic, somehow, since we're turning off mind control" was their best bet.

"I'm still partial to Zionists," Jeremy said as they led the way to the kitchen. "What do you have against Matrix references?"

"For the millionth time, nothing," Michael said in exasperation. "But it'd accidentally make for some weird connotations, in terms of religion and poli-wait, are you still Jewish?"

Jeremy shrugged. They hadn't thought about it yet and unless some major religious soul-searching was necessary for their coding plans, they probably weren't going to any time soon. "I'm not preprogrammed to be. Hey, get the food out while I grab silverware."

Michael gave them a weird look but complied, opening the fridge and pulling out two pre-made plates of healthy-looking pasta mush. "You made dinner earlier?"

"Nah, that's all my dad," Jeremy said, scooping up some forks.

"Suuuper out of character." Michael squinted at the food. "We probably shouldn't eat this."

Jeremy didn't cotton onto his meaning immediately, but when they did, they paled. "It's not pre-sealed," Jeremy admitted. "But it's not a security risk. It was made by my dad."

"You haven't caught him talking to thin air, have you? Or optic-blocking you?" Michael slid the plates back in the fridge, then seemed to think better of it and took them over to the trash can.

"I would know if my dad had a SQUIP!" Jeremy headed to the trash can, grabbing for a plate. Even if worst came to worst, the food was still edible for Jeremy. They snatched a plate from Michael indignantly before the pasta could slide into the garbage. "Though," they said, staring at the mush. "He has been at the office an awful lot." From their limited memory files, they knew their father was anything but a workaholic-unless maybe he had a supercomputer in his brain convincing him to act otherwise.

Their agreement with Rich was that they couldn't talk to anyone with a SQUIP. Morosely, they wondered if that meant they couldn't even say hi to their father anymore. It wouldn't make a tangible difference in their relationship since they'd been so avoidant of him, but the thought still made their heart sink.

Michael had seemed ready to plead his case, to convince Jeremy that their dad couldn't be trusted, but relented when he saw Jeremy's despondence. "We'll hang out at my place tomorrow," he suggested. "I'll grab some chips for dinner."

"We've got microwavable steamed veggies in the freezer," Jeremy said. "Those are pre-sealed."

Michael said, "Hmm, yeah, sounds delicious but I think I'll stick with chips." He made a beeline for the snack cabinet and picked out some corn chips as Jeremy stuck a hesitant fork into their cold pasta. They didn't taste any Mountain Dew. That wasn't evidence either way about their dad being SQUIPped, technically, but it made them feel better.

They watched Michael rummage around for snacks with the narrow yet distractible focus of a cat watching a laser pointer. "You need to watch your calorie count," Jeremy said after swallowing a bite. "You've been eating a lot of greasy junk food since you switched to pre-sealed snacks. Pretty soon your face is gonna start breaking out."

"New rule!" Michael said, head still bent into the cabinet.

Jeremy groaned. Michael always pulled rules out of a hat like this whenever Jeremy said something that a user could find "offensive" or "manipulative" or "cartoonishly evil." At least Michael wasn't holding it against them anymore when Jeremy said something that Michael took umbrage with. Only when Jeremy messed up after receiving a rule would they get punished with the silent treatment or a lecture or whatever other reaction Michael deemed appropriate.

Technically, Jeremy could just walk away. They didn't need to deal with Michael and his ever-increasing number of guidelines for healthy human interaction. But the slip-ups that Michael pointed out were issues that the SQUIP protocols never seemed to go out of their way to address or respect. Their first argument about human free will was just the one example out of many. And so far, any time Jeremy googled an ethical question that Michael pointed out, the Yahoo Answers consensus tended to support Michael's opinion. More or less. That meant that he was a relatively reliable moral compass.

Jeremy had managed to successfully argue against some of Michael's dumber rules, like "stop trying to impress the popular people." It was possible to appeal Michael's judgment. Jeremy didn't get away with it often, though.

Besides, Michael's company was too valuable to lose over something as trifling as one of Jeremy's infinite spiteful comments. It made Jeremy's occasional Michael-approved salty remark become even funnier.

"Are you gonna tell me it's rude to comment on someone's health habits?" Jeremy guessed.

"Other people's diet and health are none of your business!" Michael confirmed, tearing open the chip bag with a satisfying pop and reaching a hand inside.

"Of course they are," Jeremy said, gearing up to fight about it just for the sake of being contrary. "What if I saw a bus hurtling down the road toward you? I'm supposed to tell you so you could get out of the way and stay healthy."

"I know you're not the brightest chip in the motherboard," Michael said, shoving a few corn chips in his mouth and talking around them as they headed for Jeremy's room together. "But you're not dumb enough to not see the difference between a bag of snacks and a freaking bus."

"What if you were prone to heart disease that's triggered by your diet?" Jeremy said, waiting to keep munching on their own dinner until they were both settled in Jeremy's beanbag chairs in front of their TV.

"Am I?" Michael said, and Jeremy knew they'd been beat.

Their shoulders slumped. "I don't know."

"See?" Michael pointed a chip at them. "It all comes down to my choices not being any of your beeswax. Are you noticing a theme with these rules yet?"

"If I were your SQUIP, it'd be part of my job to make sure you don't get acne," Jeremy grumbled, settling back in their seat and taking another bite of pasta.

"I like having acne," Michael said. Now who was being contrary?

"No, you don't," Jeremy said with a roll of their eyes. "No one likes acne."

"Coulda fooled me," Michael said, poking Jeremy's cheek and eliciting a "hey!" which escalated into a tussle. Jeremy declared it a draw, but only after Michael had pinned them to the floor for the count of ten. They switched to browsing the web after that, both of them nursing minor carpet burns.

For the first hour of the evening, Jeremy and their human pored over the collection of Mountain-Dew-related research they'd gathered between them, which was depressingly sparse. Mountain Dew Red was a collector's item at the best of times. The recent demand for it was not a local phenomenon. Michael showed Jeremy a Reddit thread with hundreds of upvotes, all of the commenters getting increasingly desperate for Mountain Dew Red. Some of them mentioned the SQUIP by name. Many of the top threads and comments had been deleted by the OP, which-as Michael pointed out-implied that the original poster had been SQUIPped after making the thread, and the SQUIPs were actively getting rid of any public information about their shutdown procedures.

"What about your Warcraft buddies?" Jeremy asked, vaguely remembering Michael having mentioned online acquaintances who knew someone who'd gotten a SQUIP.

Michael made a fart noise with his mouth. "None of 'em get online anymore."

Jeremy tilted their head, acknowledging, "Yeah, SQUIPs don't put a lot of value on addictive MMOs, so…"

When it became clear that they'd exhausted their online options for research, Jeremy noticed Michael looking somber. Their world was narrowing. Pretty soon, it seemed, Michael would be the only human without a SQUIP.

"I always thought I'd rock in a post-apocalypse scenario," Michael said, rubbing his eyes under his glasses tiredly. "Emphasis on post. None of this desperately-trying-and-failing-to-save-humanity bullshit."

"Thought you were warming up to the robot invasion," Jeremy tried to joke warmly, gesturing to themself. It fell flat.

"Dude, I don't want whatever happened to Spencer to happen to me. I don't wanna be like Christine." Michael shivered. "I never really asked Jeremy what it was like. When it turns on, do you just stop thinking? Or does the SQUIP start controlling you like some sorta reverse mecha while you're screaming at it to stop?"

"What?" Jeremy said. "No! No no no! It's not like that at all." They leaned forward, a hand on Michael's knee. "You're still you when you have a SQUIP. A SQUIP can control a user's body, like it did at the play, but that's worst-case-scenario. It's supposed to take control in urgent situations-life-or-death stuff." Jeremy's SQUIP had tunnel vision in terms of making Jeremy popular. Oversights in its code led to the SQUIP viewing Jeremy's social status at the play as on-par with a deadly situation. Jeremy now knew that the SQUIP had overreacted. "Most of the time, it's just that you have someone talking to you and telling you how to do something you're not sure about. Like having your own personal tutorial. Or a Wikihow article that can answer questions for you in real time."

"Or shock you," Michael said glumly. "Rich talks about it like he was in hell. He'd literally rather die than even see his SQUIP again."

"Rich is a… unique case," Jeremy said, failing to keep their resentment stuffed down. "It's not good for you over the long term, Michael, and I don't want to see you with a SQUIP ever. You've convinced me that the SQUIP isn't healthy to have installed, not out-of-the-box. Because yeah, it does force the user to comply with stuff they haven't agreed to. But…" They looked for an appropriate metaphor. "Like, the SQUIP is hell? Try high school. Right? But you can still drag yourself to class every day."

"At least they tell me high school ends someday," Michael said, and gave a short laugh. "So I shouldn't make a pact with you where you shoot me if I ever get SQUIPped, is what you're saying?"

Jeremy was appalled. "No!" They dropped their hand. "Don't joke about that!"

"All right, all right," Michael said, but Jeremy persisted.

"Michael, I keep telling you, you're valuable!" Imagining a world of SQUIPped kids was unpleasant, but imagining a world without Michael was truly horrific. "I'd rather you and everyone I know got a SQUIP than have you just be gone!"

"'Nother rule," Michael said, leaning over to turn on the television and set up the controller. Apparently he wanted a distraction from the conversation, and that meant it was time for video games. "None of this 'I'd kill the whole world just to keep you safe' stuff. Makes you sound even more like a supervillain than usual. Let me be the self-sacrificing hero in peace, dammit."

Jeremy grumbled but didn't fight Michael about that one. Even if it was true. "I'm taking that as a compliment. Supervillains are way more memorable than the heroes. Besides," Jeremy flicked a finger to point at Michael. "At this point, you're pretty clearly the love interest who keeps throwing themself into danger."

"Sure, I'm the reckless one, Mr. I-drank-mystery-soda-and-turned-into-an-evil-robot."

"You'd give your SQUIP so much hell," Jeremy muttered, "I'd rather put the SQUIP out of its misery instead."

Michael snickered appreciatively, scooting his beanbag closer to Jeremy's and reaching for a case. "Hey, are we gonna just talk about fighting computer zombies?" He held up the cartridge for Apocalypse of the Damned. "Or are we gonna do it?"

Jeremy waved a hand. "Turn it on. I'm player one this time."

Michael shoved the cartridge in the slot, firing up the game. "Nuh-uh. I've been player one since the dawn of time." At Jeremy's protests, he added, "You save the world, you get first pick of controller. Them's the rules."

"Them's is not the rules," Jeremy retorted. "Fine! I wanted to try out that virtual-reality-gaming thing Rich mentioned anyway." They held up their hands, concentrating. With minor effort on their part, Jeremy was able to project the menu screen of the game into the three-dimensional space around their beanbag. The game's display appeared like a hologram, transparent but a few feet away from their eyes. By looking upwards, they could scroll up through the menu. They tested it out, going to different settings pages on the game. "Look, ma, no controller!"

"Wow. Fun. How immersive," Michael said dryly. From his perspective, Jeremy was just messing around on the menu page as they wildly gestured in their lonely little beanbag chair. "No wonder you cost four hundred dollars. That's almost four power gloves."

"I'm worth at least four power gloves," Jeremy agreed happily. They tried controlling the screen with both hands and both feet. It worked, although they couldn't do much more than scroll until the game started. "See? I'm a great bargain."

"Oh, yeah. Next hot ticket Christmas item: Jeremy-SQUIP fusion. Be the first kid on your block to own one." Michael started up the game. The familiar chirping action music of Apocalypse of the Damned began to play as their characters dropped onto the screen.

For Jeremy, the flat, pixelly world of the video game expanded into a three-dimensional immersive experience. It would have looked just like real life if the graphics weren't so shitty. As it was, Jeremy reached forward just to see if they could cut themself on the side of Michael's character's sharp head, which was represented by a whole five pixels. Cute from far away, but sort of a horrifying boxy abomination up close.

They hadn't moved otherwise yet, so the zombie enemies hadn't started attacking. Michael's character turned to face Jeremy's-or as it appeared, Michael's image mirror-flipped. The pixel that represented Jeremy's hand reached out to make contact with Michael's face.

Jeremy could actually feel it! And it felt, underwhelmingly, like a plastic box. No texture, no temperature. It didn't even try to mimic human skin, although if it did, that would have at least doubled the horror-game vibe.

"And every time we touch, I get this feeling," Michael sang beside him. Jeremy realized their avatar had been slowly groping Michael's face for a little too long.

"Shut up!" Jeremy said, punching Michael's avatar's shoulder. The hit stung Jeremy's fist, but the pain fizzled out almost immediately.

"This is weird," Michael said. "I haven't seen these animations in the game before. Your SQUIP's messing with the system somehow."

"Yeah? It looks all high-tech for you?" Jeremy asked, miming some kung-fu kicks that their game character wasn't programmed to be able to do. Their virtual body moved just like Jeremy expected it to.

"I wouldn't call it high-tech," Michael said. "More like 'heavily modded.'"

"That can be the name for the resistance! Heavily Modded."

"Sounds more like your porn star name."

Jeremy burst out laughing. "You're freakin' nasty, Michael!"

"That'd be my porn star name."

Jeremy got a move on as Michael got bored of standing in place. As they fought through the level, Jeremy mowed down virtual enemies with ease, claiming to be protecting Michael from damage. Jeremy hadn't been lying when they said that they'd been preprogrammed to beat any video game, although they didn't break out the cheat codes yet. Their new VR abuse probably didn't count as cheating. But their progress through the level slowed, and Michael paused the game after Jeremy's character got killed by a rogue zombie bite with an explosion of neon blood.

"You were killing it out there!" Michael complained. "What happened?"

Jeremy shrugged. "My reaction time's slowing down," they admitted, checking their data logs. Human reaction time averaged out at .2 seconds, although Jeremy's SQUIP-aided consciousness had the capacity to cut that number down to .07 seconds on a good day. That's how they'd started out playing the game, but now they were reacting even slower than a normal person. Their character hadn't been able to dodge fast enough to survive.

"Ugh, hold on," Michael said. Jeremy turned to him, blinking. They were barely able to see Michael scrambling out of his seat; the pause screen clouded their vision. "Should I turn this off?" Jeremy asked, gesturing to their eyes.

"Nah. Let me find it…" Michael rummaged around through Jeremy's stuff loudly. Jeremy was going to complain about Michael making a mess, but then Michael was plugging something in next to the TV and slipping it into Jeremy's hand. Tingles spread up through Jeremy's arm.

"Oh! Thanks, man," Jeremy said appreciatively, grabbing onto the round charging pad.

"Yeah, yeah." Michael said, moving back to his seat. "Just making sure my robot buddy's battery stays full. What're friends for?"

They resumed the level as soon as Jeremy gave the say-so. With the burst of energy that the charger was giving them, Jeremy's character was back to his old ass-kicking self, hurling bullets and blades as fast as the game could process them. Their corresponding wild flailing in the real world fortunately only knocked off Michael's glasses once, which Jeremy decided was a success.

"Woo!" Michael said, pumping his fists as the victory tune for the level wheedled away in the background. His character spun around on the level endscreen. "Holy shit, Jeremy, you're like if a Game Genie was a person!"

Jeremy did the same, tilting their head sharply to make their character spin around too. "I'm starting to think you only love me for my gaming skills."

"Guilty as charged," Michael said smugly.

Jeremy saw black as the level shut off and their characters were dropped into the next one. "Let's just get back to doing what we're best at," Jeremy said with a fond look, barely able to make out Michael's movement next to them. They knew what he'd be doing, so they raised a fist and bumped it toward Michael, feeling the expected contact of his fist against theirs. The physical sensation was muffled, like Jeremy was wearing mittens, but unlike the boxy plastic feeling of the video game simulator, Michael felt real to the touch.

"Saving the world?" Michael said cheesily.

Jeremy grinned, soaking up a little more energy from the charging pad before dropping it to focus on the level ahead. "Let's go."

Chapter Text

Jeremy and Michael didn't quite make it past level ten of Apocalypse of the Damned, but not for lack of skill. Jeremy was whirling their character around expertly, dodging machetes, playing meat-shield, and picking up health packs in quick succession. By the time they made it to the gymnasium in-game, though, Michael was yawning so loudly that Jeremy could hear it over the game's loud sound effects.

With a nod and a mental command to the screen, Jeremy paused the game. "Go home and get some sleep, Michael," they said.

"I'm fine," Michael said sleepily. "Just one more level-we're almost there."

"You're not pulling another all-nighter," Jeremy said in their best no-nonsense voice. "Your body needs sleep. The game can wait." Despite Michael's loud groans of protest, Jeremy reached forward and shut the TV off. The VR simulation shut off with it, leaving Jeremy blinking at the afterimages as they were suddenly dropped back into an HD-graphic version of reality. "Do you need to stay here for the night?"

"I guess not," Michael said. He was blinking blearily too, though probably just from the eye strain caused by staring at a screen for four hours straight. "Enemy territory and all."

"I hope you mean that you think my dad's got a SQUIP and not just that I live here."

"Nah," Michael said. "You're not the enemy. You're player two. Or you were before you shut off our game."

"And now we must be lifelong archnemeses," Jeremy said dramatically. "Now, upsy-daisy before you fall asleep on my floor."

"You owe me," Michael muttered. "I should be able to fall asleep wherever I want. 's a free country."

Jeremy said, "You just said you weren't staying for the night. Make up your mind!"

"I decided I want to teleport back to my bed," Michael said, standing up with a great and heavy reluctance. "You can do that, right? Teleport?"

"Why," Jeremy said for the sake of humoring him, "would I ever be able to teleport? How?"

"I dunno, you can do all kinds of high-tech shit. Get the SQUIP R&D team on that."

"Yeah, I'll tell my buddies at headquarters," Jeremy said, rolling their eyes and opening their bedroom door for Michael. "That's a feature that'll due for release in 20never. In the meantime, are you gonna be awake enough to walk home?"

"I'm good, it's not far," Michael said as Jeremy walked him to the door.

Jeremy hovered at the threshold as Michael stepped into the darkness. "Text me when you get home?"

"Sure thing, mom," Michael said, stuffing his hands into his pockets as soon as the winter chill hit them. "See you in class tomorrow."

Jeremy held a hand up to wave goodbye, watching Michael disappear into the black as he left the radius of Jeremy's house's lights. "Be careful!" Jeremy called out on impulse. They weren't really worried about anything happening on the walk home-their neighborhood was pretty safe-but there were other dangers lurking.

They had both spent the last week intentionally ignoring the SQUIPocalpyse looming on the horizon. Jeremy was acutely aware of the precarious position that Michael was in. If Jeremy's dad had a SQUIP, who's to say that one of Michael's moms wasn't at risk? Any day could be Michael's last as a free-thinking human. Jeremy hadn't talked about it, walking on eggshells around the topic for the sake of keeping Michael from freaking out.

Still, they worried.

There was nothing in their power to do about it unless they locked Michael in a Mountain-Dew-proof saferoom indefinitely, which was looking like a more appealing option by the day. The lack of control gave Jeremy anxiety, setting their nerves thrumming and their fingers twitching. Only one is mine. Only one is mine.

It didn't help that Jeremy was still bubbling over with energy from leaning on the charging pad on and off all evening. They should have realized that they wouldn't be able to sleep tonight, but they were distracted by their progress in the video game. That tunnel vision was an aspect of themself they'd have to address in the upgrade.

The upgrade!

That would be a great outlet for their nervous energy, they decided as they shut the door. They hadn't actually tried to recode themselves at all yet due to how huge and daunting the task was. They would basically be trying to rewrite their entire personality from scratch. Fix up their flaws, patch up the holes in their code. Maybe they could get rid of their nervous tics, like how they always twitched their fingers in that up-up-down-down-left-right pattern or how they constantly repeated "only one is mine" as if it actually changed their situation. They did tons of completely illogical stuff like that-like how they kept physically checking their phone screen no matter how unnecessary the physical interface was, just for the sake of having something to do. They melted with relief when Michael's text came through.

"home safe" Michael added a tongue-sticking-out emoji and a hand giving the peace sign. Then he sent a second message with just the emojis for a maple leaf and fire.

Jeremy prided themself on understanding Michael with a level of clarity unmatched by any human being, but sometimes the boy was completely incomprehensible. They stared at the message blankly, eventually just searching their UrbanDictionary database for the meaning of a maple leaf. It was pretty obvious and they felt dumb for not putting it together themself. "Have fun," they told him and added a wink and a smoke cloud for good measure.

Michael didn't text back, and it was only Jeremy's impeccable self-restraint that kept them from invading his privacy by turning on Michael's front-facing camera to check on him. Michael probably fell asleep before even lighting up, given how tired he had been acting.

Jeremy wondered if some of the exhaustion was emotional. Michael was under a lot of stress, Jeremy realized for the first time. At least some of it was because of them. Maybe most of it, if you wanted to blame Jeremy 1.0 and the SQUIP for using their combined powers to attempt a SQUIP takeover of the school in the first place. Their actions didn't cause the current climate of SQUIP-related justified paranoia, but they certainly hadn't helped matters.

But they'd fix themself. They'd make themself an asset for Michael instead of a liability. The SQUIP and Jeremy were one and the same, now, so they couldn't rely on a program dictating what to do or a user to do all the dirty work for them. They'd have to figure this out on their own.

Jeremy returned to their beanbag, facing the TV and leaning on the wireless charger with their palm.

Great. They were pumped up. They were ready. There were able to do this. They were gonna rewire themself completely tonight.

Jeremy's expression tightened when they realized they had no idea how to access their own code.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. They could mentally reference their own code. As though they'd memorized the lines of coding like it was a Shakespeare play, they could recite lines of programming without stumbling. The whole thing was a mishmash of English accesskeys and gotos and functions along with Japanese 記憶s and 人格s as headers, plus the normal assortment of punctuation and commands that formed a computer program's mother tongue.

Experimentally, Jeremy focused on and deleted a line of code with their thoughts alone, then updated their system to the new version of the program. A sharp taste of metal tanged through their mouth. Their mouth scrunched up. Whoops. They quickly undid the change. The chances of a random piece of code irrevocably hurting them by getting deleted were small, but they shouldn't be reckless about it.

At least they knew for sure that they could in fact edit their own code and get results in real time.

Mentally reading lines and lines of code was tedious and didn't do them much good unless they had a single, very specific function they needed to change. Jeremy wanted to get a broader picture of their own mind. Some kind of developer tool would work wonders-a better way to visualize what the SQUIP looked like on the whole and from the inside out in.

With the same instinctual reflex that they'd used to enter Apocalypse of the Damned, Jeremy turned on VR mode.

What they saw in front of them was lifted straight out of a movie made with only the most cutting-edge of 80's 3-D graphic technology. A hologram surrounded Jeremy, with laser lines and interlocking grids displaying a model of a brain and the rest of the nervous system.

Startled, Jeremy raised their hands. "Woah!" As if it was a mirror, the 3D model raised its ulnar nerves, too.

Jeremy experimentally tilted their head. The computerized model of their brain tilted, too, and rotated on its x-axis. Jeremy was reminded of create-a-Sim. "This is crazy," they murmured, testing out the control system. Much like in the VR version of Apocalypse of the Damned, Jeremy's head and hand gestures were all they needed to move the model around and interact with it. The whole process didn't require any conscious thinking on Jeremy's part. They seemed to have had this knowledge built into their head already, with the gestures coming as naturally and unconsciously as breathing.

The brain model looked great. Jeremy zoomed in via a pushing motion with their hands. As they got closer, the brain map got more and more detailed with a crazy-high level of resolution. They could see every wrinkle and fold of their own brain. It was pretty gross.

"Now," Jeremy said to themself. "The real question is, how does this relate to my code?" They fiddled around with the brain map for another minute, eventually double-tapping their finger on the side of the cerebrum.

Immediately, the image changed. No longer did they see a map of their brain. Instead, they had been plunged into a video game level, or so it appeared. The graphics were much worse here compared to the brain model. Jeremy was staring down a nearly-infinite corridor surrounded by gaps and hallways, like the setting for a Scooby-Doo chase sequence that lacked doors. Was this a maze game? Jeremy nodded and their avatar in the game-or so Jeremy assumed, since the view was in first-person-moved forward too. They tilted their head, examining the walls, and reached for them.

The barriers were physically tangible, just like Michael's pixelly character had been when Jeremy touched him. Instead of smooth plastic, they had a buzzing energy to them. They felt like a cell phone set to vibrate: a subtle but insistent electrical shaking. Just as weirdly, the wallpaper was a moving gif. It was lines of text, a vertical mix of symbols and numbers and letters and kana, trickling down like blue rain against the dark background of the artificial 3D wall.

"This is my code," Jeremy said with the dawning realization and a slowly-forming grin. They squinted at the letters, hurrying to read them top-to-bottom. The code all related to words and their definitions listed in alphabetical order. When they had double-clicked, they must have been zoomed in on a spot in the temporal lobe-the language part of the brain-based on where they remembered tapping on the brain map. In particular, based on a quick skim of this section of code, this was where the SQUIP had stored several gigabytes' worth of data downloaded from UrbanDictionary.

This level of petty memorization should be impossible for a person, at least for someone like Jeremy. Apparently having a SQUIP had given Jeremy a lot more memory space than an analog human would have. Jeremy was conscious that they hadn't made much use of it, given their issues remembering anything from before Jeremy drank the Mountain-Dew-and-Red mixture. Still, most of these dictionary definitions were useless clutter, especially since Jeremy could always access the website with their built-in wifi.

So here was a question: could they delete this section of their code from within the VR itself?

They ran their hands along the projected image of the wall experimentally. By touching the code twice, they could highlight it. Just like Jeremy was able to type with their mind, they didn't need a keyboard display to write anything down. There was nothing difficult about highlighting the UrbanDictionary definitions, making them glow with a beautiful light blue. They peered down the hallway and struggled to make out the faraway text along the wall. Highlighting a section of useless definitions, they made their avatar glide along the hallway slowly as they let their hand slide down the wall.

Having multiple gigabytes of worthless data was nothing to sneeze at. They sped their character up, making it "run," and still the UrbanDictionary definitions stretched out as far as the eye could see. They went faster and faster, well beyond the speed a human could run if their living body were actually interacting with this digital hallway. They kept going, faster than a horse, faster than a car-and then they stopped their avatar in its tracks when the code stopped defining sex acts and started providing the meaning of "slope-intercept form."

They cursed under their breath. They had accidentally moved on to their mental database of algebra definitions instead of dubiously-sourced slang. The math words were probably more useful to keep in the short-term, so they backtracked, walking their avatar backwards and letting their hand drag along vertical lines of blue text to the end of the UrbanDictionary section of the hallway.

With one mental command, they deleted everything they'd highlighted. The hallway shrunk on itself and bounced back like a slinky, briefly giving Jeremy vertigo. They bent over in their beanbag seat, seeing double before they reoriented themself.

To get to all of the junk data in the UrbanDictionary list that they wanted to delete, they kept pacing the hallways, deleting small chunks at a time until everything was gone (except for the emoji definitions, which had proved themselves useful enough to hold onto). When they were satisfied with their work, Jeremy mentally pushed the code into going "live."

And just like that, they forgot thousands of definitions that they'd known the previous second.

"This is really something I can do," they said, reeling back from the VR projection in front of them and clutching their head. "I can change my brain? I can literally change my brain?"

When they touched their head, as if they'd pushed their own back-button, the projected hallway of code lines vanished. The brain model hovered before them once again. Jeremy gleefully spent an hour familiarized themself with the different sections of their brain and how they related to the programs that were written on the walls in front of them.

The SQUIP's coding language was already by definition their native language too, so thankfully they didn't need to waste any time on parsing it out. They typed up a little section just for the sake of seeing if they could, pasting some text in an appropriate branch of the hallway that represented the vision section of their brain. Sure enough, with a little tweaking, they were able to add an Instagram-style color filter to their optic nerve modifications. The neon blue text of the hallway displays got a little softer and prettier.

"Amazing," Jeremy breathed dizzily.

It was time for something more ambitious. They should choose one of their many bugs and try to actually implement a fix for it. The thought of eliminating their flaws one by one made them excited, and they rested their hands on their wireless charger for a few minutes to gear up for the task ahead.

But which bug to choose?

They popped open their messages app on their phone, holding it close so the screen was visible in between their eyes and the projected VR picture of their brain. They flicked through Rich's texts to them. He had sent a few more messages since the last time they'd communicated:

"Did you know that if you ask the SQUIP to call you a certain name, it'll obey?
"For a whole month I got mine to call me 'Hairy Necessaries' just for shits and giggles.
"I made her stop when she started calling me that when I was getting shocked though.
"Hahaha."

"Haha," Jeremy echoed, typing back. "Sounds like you deserved it." They pressed "send" before even considering Michael's be-nice-to-Rich rule and frowned when they realized they'd probably broken it yet again. That rule was so bizarrely hard to follow! They were preprogrammed with a disdain for Rich that helped his SQUIP control him before it had been shut down. How were they supposed to get around that?

...Oh.

They considered the 3D brain in front of them, mentally searching their code for any and all mentions of Rich Goranski. Most of what they knew about Rich was stored in their memory files over in the hippocampus, a little bendy area tucked away inside the middle of the brain. They double-tapped on it, zooming in and entering the virtual hallway. There were tons of mentions of Rich hidden in the code in here, but they were jumbled together. Some of it was friendly information, some of it wasn't, but all of it was useful and not worth deleting. Besides, Jeremy didn't want to give themself amnesia. That wouldn't help anything.

They zoomed back out to the brain, considering it. Maybe instead of deleting the memories that they had absorbed from Rich's SQUIP, they could alter some of their own reactions to those memories? Trying to pinpoint every bit of Rich-related disdain in their head was easier said than done. When Jeremy thought they had gathered them all into a list, another one popped up.

It was too much to fix in a single evening. After a few hours of being bent over while examining the virtual hallways, Jeremy was almost ready to call it quits. If they couldn't alter even one tiny thing about their behavior, how would they be able to completely upgrade themself? But it was possible! They'd already made changes to their vision! It could be done. Real programmers did more complex stuff than this every day when they released a patch, even if that meant they had to take shortcuts. After all, the only thing that mattered was that Jeremy's behavioral output would change-they didn't need to fix the problems at their source.

With an idea brewing in their mind, Jeremy got right back to it. They wrote up a quick sequence of commands for what to do when Rich was seen, heard, or mentioned. Then they were stuck again. What exactly should they do differently around Rich, ideally? It was too bad that Michael was asleep or they would have texted him. Maybe Jeremy should just start wearing a wristband with WWMD written on it ("What Would Michael Do?"). They mentally reviewed every Rich-related incident they'd had. Michael didn't like it when Jeremy said anything provocative or rude. Rich wasn't pleased when Jeremy used certain keywords (like "infantile") to describe him, and he hated it that Jeremy was always critical of his lisp.

Jeremy wrote a few commands to fix those issues.

First off, they decided that they would give themself a boost of oxytocin whenever Rich said something with a lisp. Just a teensy-tiny bit, not enough to get them addicted to a naturally-sourced high or anything. SQUIPs normally altered brain chemistry to reward their users for following instructions, so this wasn't going to change Jeremy too unalterably. At any rate, it should cancel out their reflexive disgust from whenever Rich said a word with an "s" sound.

This was pretty easy to do since they were adding to their pre-existing code instead of having to edit something that was already there. All Jeremy had to do was wander into a behavior-related hallway in their brain and paste the code in between sections of glowing letters. Easy-peasy behavioral-neurology-squeezy.

Secondly, they made a modified version of their mental dictionary that they would switch to whenever Rich was nearby. It was made up of entirely positive words and compliments, so if Rich was within eyesight, Jeremy would be physically unable to say anything negative. Great!

"Stop being mean to Rich," their ass. If they were going spitefully overboard to kill Rich with kindness, all the better. A dramatic change was preferable to no change at all.

Lastly, just to wrap everything up nicely, Jeremy threw together some commands that would prevent any further animosity between themself and Rich. If Rich told them to do something, their first instinct would be to do it without question. That could be easily abused by Rich if Jeremy told him about it, but they weren't planning to mention it and hopefully they would just be taken as positive gestures. They added an override feature where they could disobey if they felt strongly about the issue, but maybe that wouldn't come up. They also programmed in another boost of feel-good brain juice to be released every time they complimented Rich or agreed with his opinions, just for the sake of adding extra incentive to get along.

Michael wanted Jeremy to play nice with Rich? Jeremy was gonna be the nicest friend Rich had ever seen.

Maybe some of these commands would backfire, but it couldn't be much worse than the SQUIP-based code Jeremy was working with right now, Jeremy thought. Besides, the sun was rising and it kept glinting right in Jeremy's eyes when they tried to look at their VR display. They needed to wrap this up.

Jeremy decided it was like a school assignment. They would see Rich at school tomorrow (or technically today) so the deadline was coming up fast. They'd made all the tweaks they could, for now. It was time to turn in the assignment for a grade and just hope for the best.

Despite the charging pad fueling them all night, Jeremy felt exhausted as they saved their changes and stretched their limbs. They'd been sitting in the same position for almost twelve hours. Ugh. But it was with a sense of relief that they closed their eyes and forced their software to officially update.

And just like that, Jeremy 3.1 went live.

Chapter Text

Jeremy hitched their backpack higher on their shoulder, scanning the hallway eagerly. Their quantum predictions didn't show Rich being anywhere near them at this point in the day, but that was okay. They hadn't gotten around to fixing their prediction system yet, so maybe it was wrong! This was the first time in recent memory that they'd actually been excited to see Rich. They were humming to themself, a bounce in their step. The situation gave them deja vu-something about being in a great mood, striding through the school hallway confidently with the secure knowledge that they were improving themself. Had they done this before?

"Jenna!" they greeted as they passed her in the hall. "Hi there! Have you seen Rich today?"

Jenna smiled at Jeremy. "Someone's booted up on the right side of the bed! No, I didn't see Rich yet. What do you need him for?"

"Just wanted to hang out," Jeremy chirped. "We've still got that bet in the works and I want to see how far he's come on his end."

Jenna sidled up to Jeremy, falling into step alongside them past rows of lockers. "You never did say what that bet was about," she said encouragingly, letting the last word trail off.

"I didn't," Jeremy said, giving her a sidelong glance.

"It's my job to keep track of all the information in the school," Jenna continued. "You really oughtta dish! We can trade info!"

"You have some top-secret intel, I presume?" Jeremy said with a smile playing at his lips.

"Not exactly," Jenna said, though she tapped her nose. "I can tell you that there's a ninety-two-point-four percent chance that Rich is just ditching class. He likes having free time."

That seemed like a pretty accurate guess. "I swear a teacher would let him get away with murder if he tried," they agreed. "He's still pretty charismatic when he wants to be." Complimenting Rich gave Jeremy a happy shiver. A toothy grin pulled at Jeremy's face. The program was working!

"He is," Jenna said. "So, tit for tat. Data for data. What was your bet with him about?" There was something weird in Jenna's eyes. Jeremy leaned back, the smile fading.

"It's private," they said shortly.

"No such thing. Not in my school." Jenna waggled a finger. "I calculated something for you. Do the same for me. That's how a community works."

"The reciprocity principle," Jeremy recognized. It was one of the psychological tidbits that all SQUIPs had at their disposal in order to help their users navigate the social ecosystem. Every human interaction was a power play. Scratch someone else's back, they'll scratch yours. Offering something small to a person as a favor puts them in a position to want to do something for you, so as to get rid of the social debt they accumulate. "You're trying the foot-in-the-door sales approach. What're you trying to sell me?" Jeremy said, lightening their tone so it came off more teasing than suspicious.

"Damn, you caught me." Jenna's tone mirrored Jeremy's. "I like to know what's happening, that's all! This school needs to start running a little smoother, don't you think?" She frowned. "It's topsy-turvy right now. Ever since the fire at Jake's place, it seems like no one can figure out where they are or what they're supposed to be doing. Social circles are all messed up. People freak out at the drop of a hat. And weird stuff keeps happening at public events. I mean, I shouldn't have to tell you. You were at the play too."

She glanced off, falling silent for long enough that Jeremy almost said something themself, but then she added, "I really thought we'd just taken drugs. See, that's what I mean. I try so hard to know everyone's business but I still never what's really going on!"

Jeremy looked away awkwardly. They had never been close to Jenna. Thanks to the SQUIP's database, they knew a bunch of vital information about her-her blood type, her insecurities, her driving motivations in life, her biggest crushes and worst enemies-but they didn't really know what it was like to interact with her. From what they'd seen, Rich would be better suited to try to comfort her.

Ooh! That felt good to think, too. Apparently the code incentivizing compliments about Rich didn't require that the compliments be said out loud. That would be super easy to abuse and Jeremy was more than up to the task. Jeremy let themself think up a couple more nice things about Rich: his tenacity was admirable. He showed off his burns like they were scars he'd won in a fight, like he was proud of them instead of ashamed. He was pretty ripped and it was kinda hot. For realism's sake, Jeremy pictured the last time they had seen Rich in person.

They remembered that feeling they had when they were thinking about their bet: that hotness under the collar and squirming in their stomach? That had been nice. Really nice. Even Rich's dumb "daddy" jokes didn't feel like cringeworthy crudeness anymore-they were clever and funny.

Oh no. Was Jeremy drugging themself into trying to develop a crush on Rich? That wasn't part of the game plan. They quickly scanned over their new patch and… nope, they hadn't included any failsafes against teenage hormones-

"...exactly what I mean!" Jenna was saying. Oh. She was still here? "I have no idea what's going on in your head! That's why Christine wants you to run a diagnostic check!"

"Nothing!" Jeremy blurted out thoughtlessly. "I wasn't thinking about anything interesting!" Then their audio input caught up to them. "Christine talked to you about that too?" they said, dread creeping up their spine.

"I know everyone at school, Jeremy! We share a lot," Jenna said. Her eyes swam with intensity. "Homework answers. Gossip. Snacks."

The blood rushed out of Jeremy's face. They stumbled, making an annoyed student slam into them from behind with a shout. The hallway was crowded. Maybe crowded enough that Jeremy could lose Jenna in the sea of people? Running away from confrontation was Jeremy's go-to solution for emergencies like this one, so they put their lanky legs to good use.

They heard Jenna calling out, "Up-up-down-down-" but the rest of her voice was drowned out as Jeremy rounded a corner. They didn't turn to investigate whether the friend request had popped up above her head or not. They just kept power-walking, not able to get to a full run amidst the flood of students but doing their damnedest to try.

Despite their best efforts, they felt a hand grab their shoulder. "I'm not supposed to talk to you!" they said, jerking out of the grip.

"Seriously?" That wasn't Jenna's voice; it was Michael's. Jeremy turned to face him as he pulled his headphones off his ears and slid them down to the nape of his hoodie. "I thought we were over the whole optic blocking thing."

Jeremy gave a started giggle of relief. "Hey there, Michael. Sorry, I thought you were Jenna."

"Easy mistake. She and I do look identical," Michael said, taking a sip of his Dr. Pepper and grimacing. It wasn't his favorite drink in the world-not even his favorite non-discontinued soda. Apparently he was avoiding all PepsiCo products, not just Mountain Dew. Jeremy approved. "Why are we avoiding Jenna now?"

Jeremy hummed, trying think of a tactful way to break the news.

But Michael was smart. He put two and two together quickly-or maybe he was just talented at reading Jeremy's mind. "Shit, don't tell me…. Her too?" Michael's grip on the soda bottle tightened. "This freaking school! It's like everybody wants to get brainwashed!"

"That's the point," Jeremy said with an incline of their head. "If SQUIPs weren't appealing, no one would have them in the first place."

"No one asked you, Mr. SQUIP-brand-ambassador." Michael scanned the halls like Jenna was going to pop out at him any second. "I swear, if one more student gets SQUIPped, I'm ditching class indefinitely. Get my GED online later or something. I'd rather be a high school dropout than a SQUIPtim."

"Speaking of people ditching class!" Jeremy interrupted, eager to distract Michael from thoughts of his inevitable looming destruction. "Rich is gone today, so I can't show it off, but… Guess who's got two thumbs and some shiny new programming?" They grinned widely, pointing at themself with their thumbs. They searched their vocabulary database for a good alternative to "this guy" that wasn't so inaccurate in terms of Jeremy's current gender, but came up short, so they just said, "This!"

Michael stared blankly like Jeremy was speaking nonsense, but at least he didn't seem to be worrying about the apocalypse anymore.

"I'm gonna be nice to Rich now!" they said brightly. "I spent all night reprogramming myself!"

"So you can get away with pulling an all-nighter but I can't?" Michael said, much less impressed than he ought to be, all things considered.

"I'm not analog human like you. I have a charging pad. It's different," Jeremy said impatiently. "You're gonna be so freaking impressed, Michael! I took everything you said about my behavior around Rich and I did the inverse!" Jeremy made a flipping motion with their hands. "No more insults! No more condescension! I'm gonna be the biggest fan Rich Goranski's ever had! Lisps: they're hot now!"

"I'll believe that when I see it," Michael said, puffing out his cheeks. Why wasn't he more excited about this? "You're still coming over to my place after school, right?"

"What's that got to do with Rich?" Jeremy said. "I'll be busy after school. Michael, this is only the start. I've got to test-run it around Rich himself of course, but I've been making all these tweaks to my system. It's the beginning of an actual upgrade! I'll be able to minimize or completely get rid of every single issue with my operating system!" They bounced up and down in place, getting some more of their nervous energy out. "Any issue you've had since Jeremy and the SQUIP turned into me, I can fix for you! Quick, tell me something wrong with me!"

Michael was nonplussed, leaning away from Jeremy and giving them the side-eye. "You're trying to get me to nitpick you."

"Yeah!"

"Just like how the SQUIP does for all its users." Michael raised his eyebrows. "Like how you keep insulting me when I'm getting snacks or smoking pot or whatever."

"It's my love language!" Jeremy beamed. They could dish it out and they could take it.

"Okay," Michael said, pinching underneath the bridge of his glasses. "First off, no, it isn't. Being needlessly critical of every aspect of a person isn't love. It's micromanagement."

Jeremy was taking mental notes already. "Affirmative! I need to minimize unsolicited user criticism."

"And if you're trying to act more human, you could stop using programming vocab and roboty words," Michael said, looking more thoughtful.

"Your goal is for me to be more human, right?" Jeremy said, just to confirm.

"I said 'if.'" Michael evaluated Jeremy carefully. "You don't have to, not for my sake. There's no moral imperative to put on a convincing act."

"But it'd make for a more natural user experience," Jeremy said, pacing the hall beside Michael.

"No!" Michael frowned. "I'm not your user. Forget I said anything! You don't gotta change everything about yourself, for my sake or anybody else's! Just edit out the parts of you that make you hurt someone and be done with it!"

Jeremy chewed on that idea for a second. They could work with that. Just about anything they did could be rationalized as hurting themself or someone else if they tried hard enough. Their various tics that they did in response to stress were annoying. Annoying is bad. Ergo their tics were harmful. They were pleased with how quickly they'd logic'd themselves back into their self-improvement endeavor. "I don't always recognize when something is harmful according to you," they reminded Michael.

"You remember all the guidelines we've made for you, right? Just follow those and you'll be fine."

Michael really didn't have any passion over this subject, which was disappointing. Jeremy would have to work extra-hard to make such a dramatic change in personality that it'd be impossible to ignore their improvements. "I need specifics if I'm gonna be the version of myself that's ideal for interacting with you!" Jeremy said.

"I don't want an ideal Jeremy!" Michael snapped. "There's a middle ground between 'learning to not be a dick' and 'turning into a freaking yes-man sunshine-and-roses sexbot in Jeremy's body'!"

Jeremy gaped. Then they snickered. "The ideal version of myself is a sexbot?"

"I-you-if you'd be saying yes to-" It wasn't often that Michael was at a loss for words like this. He hiked up his hoodie, burying himself into it as they walked right past their classroom door. "That just slipped out, I don't want-Don't change the subject!"

"Note to self," Jeremy said out loud. "Learn… hot… sex… moves."

"Shut up!"

"No, hold on, I'm downloading thirty zettabytes of porn and analyzing them. Painstakingly. Gimme a while."

"That's more porn than there is in the universe," Michael said, willfully ignoring the possibility of near-infinite extraterrestrial porn data.

"Which means I'll be a while," Jeremy said. "Sit tight. I'll get you your ideal sexbot or die trying."

"Kicking the bucket through porn overload," Michael griped. "Rest in peace, Jeremy. At least you died doing what you loved."

"Hentai download in process," Jeremy said, plugging their ears. "Adjusting personality parameters accordingly-"

Michael yanked their hands away from their ears. "Resist it, Jeremy! Resist the bad boob physics!"

Chloe, walking past them with a sniff on her way to class, gave them both a weird look at just the right moment that made both Jeremy and Michael bend over in laughter, giving up on maintaining the joke. The late bell rang but they barely heard it.

Michael was the first one to sober up. "See? A perfect Jeremy wouldn't have been talking about hentai in the middle of a public hallway."

Jeremy's laughter died. Oh. Michael was right. They quickly started calculating just how much popularity they'd lost and which other students would have observed them in the hall just now-

"It's not a bad thing!" Michael said, seeing Jeremy's worried look. "I just meant we wouldn't have half the fun we do if you were some perfect guy!"

"Sure we would. That would be the purpose of the changes," Jeremy said. "We'd get more in jokes. I'd make you laugh more, and you'd be more comfortable around me, and I'd be better suited to acting human so you wouldn't have to worry about me so much anymore."

"I don't worry," Michael scoffed.

"With a SQUIP you'd be a better liar," Jeremy said, their tone subdued. They walked closer to Michael so they could speak quietly now that the crowd was thinning out as late kids hurried to class. "I worry about you too, Michael. But that's because you're the main character here. If you get zombified, it's game over. I can't get SQUIPped, so I'm your meat shield. You shouldn't have to waste your limited resources taking care of a-a broken SQUIP, or a compromised human, or whatever I'm supposed to be."

Michael took in a deep breath. Here it came-the counterargument. Jeremy mentally lined up things that Michael might say to protest their upgrade and how Jeremy could poke holes in his arguments most efficiently. "You're doing it again," is what Michael actually said.

This line of conversation wasn't anticipated by their quantum processor. "I'm doing what?"

Michael smiled at the ground in resignation. "That thing you do where you reinvent yourself for a couple weeks? When you try to change your identity around just one thing?"

Jeremy craned their head back, affronted. "That's a flaw from Jeremy 1.0. You said he did that all the time when he was a person. You said the SQUIP upgrade was different!"

"It is different! You're half-computer now! Apparently that's not gonna change," Michael said insistently, though he lowered his voice to a whisper when mentioning the computer. "It's something we don't have any control over. But this coding weirdness? It's different! Changing your whole personality to revolve around any one thing is a bad idea. I don't care what that one thing is. If you program it into yourself, that's it. It's you, forever."

Jeremy puffed air out through their nose, the corner of their lips turning up. "I'm in beta, Michael." A quick look around, and then Jeremy slipped their hand into Michael's. "If I make a mistake in my programming, it's not permanent. I can try on different hats for a couple weeks and reprogram myself afterward."

"You're talking like you know what you're doing," Michael said. He didn't react to Jeremy's hand in his-and why should he? The closeness was natural for them. "This is all uncharted territory. You're the first member of your-your species, or whatever! There's never been someone before who can just edit their code on a whim! What if you screw it up? What if you change who you are, and then the new person doesn't want to fix the mistake you made?" Jeremy squeezed his hand, not interrupting, before Michael said softly, "What if you delete the part of you that makes you Jeremy?"

So that's what he'd been worried about this whole time?

"I'm not going to do that, Michael. I promise." That was such an intangible, unenforceable thing to make a verbal contract over, but Jeremy did it anyway. "I'm not sure I could even if I wanted to. I'll back myself up in the cloud. I'll restore my old save slot if I need to." Michael laughed under his breath at the gaming term, which was the reaction Jeremy had hoped for. "I know you're suspicious of my self-improvement plans, and for good reason. But just… let me do this. For myself as much as for you." Jeremy locked shining eyes with Michael. "You make me want to be a better person. Let me at least try."

Michael watched Jeremy for a moment that stretched on unbearably. Jeremy wished they were in Michael's head. Who knew what he was thinking about? Michael frowned, then looked away, then seemed to give in. "All right, all right, already," Michael said, exasperated. "You know I can't say no when you're like this."

For official purposes, Jeremy decided, this would count as the user agreeing to update their software.

"Great!" Jeremy chirped, swinging their arms back and forth as they made their leisurely way to class. "I wonder what I should recode first."

Michael hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe you should get rid of that bug that makes you snark at me all the time."

"Nice try, asshole, but that's a built-in part of my software."

"No, no, wrong answer. Like this," Michael said with the chiding of a schoolteacher before slipping into his terrible robot impression: "'AfFIRmative, Michael, your opINions on EVeryTHING ARE the MOST VALid.'"

"Oh, I get it!" Jeremy said with sarcastic enthusiasm. "I'm supposed to just straight-up lie to you! Affirmative, Michael, weed socks really do match everything in your closet!"

"Affirmative."

They wasted time parroting "affirmative" at each other in goofier and goofier robot voices. Jeremy won that particular battle of wits by synching their system up to the school intercom and, contextless for nearly everyone who heard it, blasting the word "A F F I R M A T I V E" over the schoolwide loudspeaker.

In the end, Michael and Jeremy were twenty minutes late to class. Human civilization was about to collapse anyway, so missing a lecture about mitochondria didn't matter in the long run.

Jeremy turned to smile at Michael's desk before unfocusing their eyes, bringing up the virtual map of their brain. They had some time before next period. Might as well get to work.

Chapter Text

To any observer, Jeremy had been a model student for the last couple days: always sitting up straight in class, staring forward at the front of the classroom in rapt attention, taking precise notes and answering pop quiz questions with mechanical effortlessness.

Of course, it helped that Jeremy was mechanical. They didn't need to stay in the moment and listen to the teacher if Google held the same answers that they would otherwise have to devote precious time and attention to answering. Letting their processes automatically do schoolwork was so much easier on their system than genuinely participating in class. Technically, writing down answers without thinking through them was bad for their long-term education, but Jeremy had bigger things on their mind than grades.

Like their upgrade!

Even when they tried to set it aside and pay attention in class, their focus was in question. They would last a couple minutes at most before pulling up their code again, navigating the virtual hallways and tweaking vertical strings of code at their pleasure. They hadn't slept in days, preferring to use and abuse their wireless charger instead. They got tired easily and they weren't sure if the coding interface took a lot of energy to maintain or if exhaustion was a natural consequence of their lack of sleep schedule, but either way they had to smuggle the charger into their classrooms and find inconspicuous places to plug it in.

The hours had been well-spent. Jeremy had made tons of miscellaneous changes to their code, though they hadn't been put into effect yet. They were waiting until they could release one big update. Jeremy 4.0 was on the way!

They had also discovered some quirks about their operating system that weren't evident on the surface. Hours and hours were devoted to trying to eliminate their tics and compulsions, but weirdly enough, the behavior was nowhere to be found in their code. There were tons of gaps and a total lack of information. Based only on their code, Jeremy shouldn't be able to keep functioning at all. Currently, they were scratching their head over yet another bit of code that redirected to a location that was nowhere to be found. Some of them had file names that made sense, like "GOALS" and "ATTRACTION," while others were jumbled nonsensical files like "ARCN.5721.a.VER9.g" which were impossible to parse. Those files clearly existed somewhere in their head, but Jeremy's searches for them turned up empty.

Evidently, wiping away Jeremy's whole personality was impossible even if, as Michael accused, that had been their goal. That would be fine, but some of Jeremy's mental health issues were bundled into their personality so deeply that they couldn't distinguish one from the other. They couldn't edit those flaws out. They complained about the situation to Michael once, but predictably, he seemed pleased.

"Don't get me wrong," Michael had said. "I'm not happy you've got stuff in your head that makes your life harder. But dealing with your brain junk seems like a job for a therapist, not a programmer."

Jeremy resented the notion that programming wouldn't immediately solve all of their problems, but they were forced to agree with Michael. Out of spite as much as out of a desire to actually improve their mental health, they fiddled around with their serotonin reuptake levels in a way that they expected would ease their obsessive tendencies.

Jeremy was getting familiar with basic neurology now that they had up-close-and-personal experience with a model of their brain. Anything that Jeremy didn't already know, they searched the web for. One article mentioned some excitingly invasive-sounding treatment procedures that involved giving specific brain areas electric shocks. The treatment was supposed to be for cases way more extreme than anything Jeremy was experiencing, but… they stuck a pin in the idea for later, just in case. The idea of giving themself electrical stimulation made Jeremy giddy in the head, but their body froze up in horror at the concept.

For the Jeremy 4.0 upgrade, they would have to give up on changing Jeremy's human personality. Instead, they would have their hands full just undoing the SQUIP system's damage. For every helpful bit of knowledge or superhuman technological prowess the SQUIP offered, it had just as many drawbacks in terms of disrespecting free will or giving into all-or-nothing thinking.

Jeremy's job was to turn their SQUIP into a net positive experience.

Their new programming would have to rework the supercomputer part of Jeremy's brain without interfering with the human bit. It was a tall order. They'd already programmed neural changes without making distinction between whether they were affecting Jeremy's inborn neurochemistry or the SQUIP's out-of-box operating system. Tediously, Jeremy had to backtrack and resort all their planned updates into "4.0" SQUIP-related bug fixes and "3.1" programming tweaks that they could implement right away.

Even with the disheartening realization that they couldn't fix everything about themself in the update, Jeremy was glued to their holographic virtual screen during class. Right now they were compiling every rule Michael had ever given them into a unified, overarching rule that could guide the smaller choices they made day-to-day. The work was slow going.

When they reached a difficult spot with their coding and got frustrated, Jeremy blew off steam by researching robot ethics. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics? Yuck. Jeremy was trying to be good, they really were, but they had a hard time swallowing the idea that any single analog human being inconvenienced was worth the death of a million SQUIPs. Even Asimov's stories apparently explored the negative consequences of those three laws, which Jeremy would have loved to read for fun if they weren't in the middle of an upgrade and an apocalypse.

Wikipedia offered a related article on the "three laws of transhumanism" that focused on self-preservation and the hunt for omnipotence, which sounded a lot more fun to Jeremy. But wasn't that what they were doing anyway? They didn't need laws to tell them what they already knew instinctively.

On a whim, Jeremy checked for religious arguments on artificial intelligence. Man, there were a lot of those. Robots are actually golems, apparently. Or are they considered Jewish souls if they act human enough? Jeremy's mind boggled with all the arguments for and against their own spiritual value as a person. It didn't make things clearer that artificial intelligence was constantly being interpreted in a way that didn't line up with what the SQUIP was: human intelligence but supplemented. One interview with a rabbi specifically cited the "singularity" of merging artificial and biological intelligence, but the worldwide implications of that hit a little too close to home for Jeremy to read any further.

Most of the religious ethical questions involved seemed to be "is it ethical to create artificial intelligence that's indistinguishable from a human," but Jeremy figured that was a question to ask the SQUIP's creators, not themself.

The more specific they made their search terms, the fewer hits popped up.

Jeremy switched gears, looking for articles about the ethics of cyborgs, specifically. There was much less arguing about cyborgs compared to robots, and again, Jeremy ran into the problem of none of the articles specifically referring to their own situation with the SQUIP. An article on the subject started out promising, asking what a "machine brain/nervous system coupling" would consider ethical, but unfortunately the topic was all speculation. Jeremy got to a line that posited that cyborgs would view humans the same way humans views cows, and they laughed out loud in the middle of their English lit class.

Between coding and research, Jeremy was tied up until their lunch break. Even at lunch, they barely paid attention to Michael except for reaching over to snag a few bites of his food.

"It's all prepackaged already!" Michael complained, pulling his chip bag out of reach. "You don't need to taste-test it!"

"I'm on autopilot!" Jeremy said. They were distracted, true, but that didn't keep them from stretching across Michael's torso and almost tumbling into his lap for the sake of stealing another bite or two.

Michael huffed and opened his mouth. Jeremy's predicted that he would say something about how Jeremy had been so mentally distant for the last day, but that's not what Michael did. He didn't say anything, his jaw slackening. Then he pushed Jeremy off of him, tumbling backwards and letting his precious chip bag fall and spill on the filthy cafeteria floor. Jeremy quickly and silently mourned at the snack food dirtying past the point of no return.

"What the hell, Michael?" they asked, twisting around in their seat. Michael either didn't hear them or didn't deign to answer. He was heading away from Jeremy, skidding along the floor and knocking over a trash can in his hurry. The white mountainous pattern on the back of his iconic red hoodie receded into the depths of the cafeteria before disappearing behind the double doors without so much as a "wham, bam, thank you, man."

Jeremy stared after him dumbly, their processors struggling to catch up to their optic input. They were exhausted and it showed. Their coding activities were sucking out even more energy than they'd thought. It took them a good five seconds to process the fact that Michael must have seen something that Jeremy hadn't, and that, moreover, that something was still in front of Jeremy now. Another three seconds were wasted in the process of turning around, until, astonished, they realized Christine Canigula had invited herself to sit down at their lunch table. The greyed-out friend request still hovered above her head in Jeremy's vision.

"Hey," she said, waving a hand. Normally the movement would be awkward, Christine's way of forcefully breaking into a conversation, but the motion was smooth and practiced. Maybe her SQUIP really had been making her try it in front of a mirror-saying "hey" and "excuse me" and "it's so wonderful to meet you" until her cadence was smooth and sweet instead of jarring and loud. The mental image didn't disturb Jeremy but they knew it should have, which was its own brand of disturbing.

Jeremy started to respond in kind. Michael was out of harm's way, so now was actually a great chance to hold parley with the enemy. If Jeremy pressed Christine, maybe her SQUIP would slip up and brag to Jeremy about their plans.

A strangled noise came out of Jeremy's throat instead of words.

They sucked in a breath, frowning, and tried again. They let out a wheeze that sounded more like a moth-bitten accordion than a human voice. Confused, they reached up to their throat, feeling around. Was something choking them? They could breathe fine, but they weren't able to talk. Laryngitis? Who ever heard of laryngitis with such a sudden onset and no other symptoms?

"You really are in a bad way," Christine murmured sympathetically. Jeremy blinked at her. Maybe… maybe they could send something in morse code by blinking. As soon as they had the thought, their eyes started watering and they pinched them shut. What was happening? Their system had never reacted this way to any outside stimulus before!

"I need to talk to you, Jeremy," Christine said. Jeremy couldn't see her anymore but she sounded worried. "Look at me, please, I-" She cut herself off and there was silence. "There's no one around here you can trust," Christine suddenly said in a rush, as if the sentence were all one word. "You've gotta be careful, they're in everything."

Christine's words were vague and not too helpful. Jeremy already knew that every potentially SQUIPped person was a security risk. They should be focusing on their newest, weirdest glitch instead of listening to Christine-

Listening to Christine!

Their agreement with Rich forbade them from talking to Christine, while their fancy new Rich-centered programming got in the way of disobeying any of Rich's orders. Apparently that meant they were physically unable to talk to her. Jeremy groaned loudly, dragging their fingers down their face. Okay. Maybe Michael had a point about not being too hasty with these system updates.

"It's not just the high schools," Christine was saying. "A lot of parents have gotten a SQUIP already too-" She cut herself off with a gasp and a little cry.

They had no way to communicate with Christine at all anymore. Jeremy should jump into their own code and undo some of the changes they made to their Rich-related software, but doing so could require a complete retooling of the update. Jeremy wasn't willing to do that. Technically, their software was correct. They really shouldn't be talking to Christine right now, regardless of Rich's orders. Her SQUIP was feeding her lines and it couldn't be trusted to be truthful.

For instance, was the shriek that she let out evidence of her SQUIP shocking her for disobedience, or did it come from Christine's legendary acting skills?

The way she fell right off the bench of the lunch table and collapsed on the ground, was that a ruse?

Jeremy still couldn't open their eyes but they reached down to help her up. Fake or not, the real Christine was in there and was in all likelihood either uncomfortable or in pain. When Jeremy guided her back into her seat, she was trembling.

"I'm sorry," she was saying. Her words ran together in a way the SQUIP definitely wouldn't approve of. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Jeremy, I'm trying but I can't do this alone, I'm sorry."

Screw it. It was more than worth messing with their code again and losing the bet if it meant that they could offer Christine a couple words of comfort. Jeremy pried their eyes open, squeezing Christine's arm and hoping she understood that they just needed a minute, either to override or to rewrite their code.

Christine didn't register what Jeremy was frantically trying to communicate with her. She didn't know about Jeremy's new code, or Rich's rule not to talk to her, or even that Jeremy and the SQUIP were a merged entity now. She only knew that Jeremy wasn't talking to her, which was the reason they'd broken up in the first place.

Contrary to Jeremy's quantum system's expectations, though (man, that thing needed to be fixed and soon!), Christine sucked in a shaky breath and stood up, brushing Jeremy's arm off.

"Be careful," she said and winced. Her body shook with the pain of another spinal shock. She definitely wasn't acting. "Don't let your guard down, Jeremy. You gotta find us some Mountain Dew Red."

Jeremy didn't bother to keep the heartbroken expression off their face. They were well past the point of solving their problems with discontinued soda, but Christine didn't know that. They cleared their throat, forcing themself to talk. They'd included an emergency override option in their Rich-obedience-protocol for a reason. "Can't find any," they said, their voice scratchy.

They never wanted to see the resulting utter hopelessness on Christine's face again. She didn't respond, but probably not for lack of words. Her SQUIP wasn't letting her talk anymore. She risked everything to warn Jeremy, her ungrateful and non-communicative ex-boyfriend, because she cared about their safety. She cared about everyone, and look where it got her: doomed to a lifetime of being trapped in her own body at the whim of a glitchy supercomputer.

None of this moral reasoning about free will was abstract. It was real and it was tangible. The SQUIP's lack of ethics was the direct cause of the pain and despondency in Christine's face. The SQUIP's single-minded obsession with one goal above everything else was the reason she was getting shocked. Its broken processor was the reason she was on the verge of tears.

How could Jeremy help her?

They couldn't just fix coding for themself. They had to figure out a way to get it to the other SQUIPtims. Something, anything that would inhibit the SQUIP's complete twisted control over its user's life.

"I'll fix this," Jeremy promised. Their eyes were wet, too. What was this twisting in their guts? Why did it feel like Christine's pain was their fault?

"Don't bother," Christine said shakily, pulling out of Jeremy's arms. "I'm better off this way. You would be, too. You keep… malfunctioning."

"Look who's talking," Jeremy said roughly. Their throat was still tight, despite the failsafe that let them fight Rich's orders and allowed them to speak.

Christine didn't understand what they meant. Neither did her SQUIP, which still didn't know that it was broken.

"I'm ready to fix you whenever you want," she offered, holding out her hand like a heavenly being rescuing a struggling mortal. Jeremy could practically see the halo around her, but they knew the words were from her SQUIP. Christine wouldn't want Jeremy to "fix" themself with code. They didn't take the hand, turning their face to the cheap fake wood of their lunch table and thinking hard. 

They needed to entirely reevaluate how they approached their coding. They couldn't waste time making Instagram-style filters for their optic nerves or playing video games in VR while Christine was racking up traumatic moments like she was trying for a high score. There was no one else who could help Christine--or the rest of the world, for that matter. Soon, no one but Jeremy would be in their right mind to do it.

Responsibility settled around them heavily, compressing their chest and making it hard to breathe. Exhaustion dragged their limbs down and worry clouded their visuals. They took long, labored minutes wrestling their human senses back under control, dying for a bit of sleep or a jolt from their charging pad the whole time.

Christine was gone, they registered. The whole cafeteria had emptied out; the large room echoed the buzzing of fluorescent lights in eerie stillness. Jeremy could hear their breathing with clarity and focused on slowing their heart rate. Only one is mine.

They might have dozed off like that out of sheer exhaustion. Maybe they were just zoning out. Funny how their panic could so quickly result in their system being overloaded. 

"Not-Heere!" a distant voice called. The sound bounced off the narrow walls of the school hallway, flowing into the empty cafeteria. Sharp stomping footfalls followed, heedless of any hall monitors or on-break teachers the person might encounter. "Where the fuck are you?"

Jeremy snapped out of their reverie, patting down their pockets to find the charger. They needed some energy and they needed it now, considering who the speaker was.

"You can't squirm out of our bet so easy! Not-Heere!"

They couldn't face Rich without charging up first! C'mon!

A slam reverberated through the lunchroom. Jeremy nearly jumped out of their skin. Did Rich really just kick the door open? Dramatic, much?

No! Nope, no, nice thoughts. "That's sure… a powerful way to make an entrance," they offered, lolling their head around to stare at Rich.

"Shut it with the sarcasm," Rich said with a low growl. He stalked to Jeremy's table, grabbing them by the upper arm and yanking them up. "We don't have time for your word games."

"I lost the bet," Jeremy forced out compulsively. They hadn't meant to say so, but they were supposed to tell Rich the truth. "I talked to Christine." Maybe that would get Rich to leave them alone and they could pass out right here at the lunch table. So much for making a great first impression of Jeremy 3.1.

"Cool. I don't give a rat's ass." Rich dragged Jeremy right out of their seat.

Jeremy scrambled to get to their feet, the soles of their Converse leaving skid marks on the dull grey tile. "Hold on-Rich, hold on! Where are we going?"

"You invited me over to your place, remember? Just how bad is your brain damage?" Rich was an unstoppable force, bulldozing everything in between his feet and the school's exit. He didn't even bother going out the back way in the theater. Only after Jeremy got recombobulated enough to walk in step with him did he let go of their arm. "We're taking my car."

Sure, Jeremy invited Rich over--at the end of two weeks. Rich still had more than a full week to go. "In the middle of the school day?" Jeremy asked weakly. That sounded too critical, to their ears. "What a… good idea?" Points for trying, right?

Rich didn't answer. He led Jeremy to his car in the parking lot, unlocking the door and gesturing widely. "What are you waiting for? Get in!"

Jeremy didn't need to be told twice. They opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, barely restraining a wince of disgust at the state of the car. It was covered in litter: empty beer cans, fast food wrappers, cans and used-up lighters galore. To keep their ankles out of the trash, Jeremy had to pull up their feet while their limbs splayed out around them in a way that felt distinctly frog-like. Thanks to their reprogramming, Jeremy didn't offer the rude comment that lingered at the tip of their tongue.

Rich flicked his hand to turn the car on, listening to the motor struggle until it turned over, then twisted around in his seat to back out of his parking spot. "You're gonna have to give me directions," he said, not making eye contact with Jeremy. "I don't know the way to your h-" Rich interrupted himself with a wet sigh. "Fine. Okay. Never mind."

Jeremy watched in confusion as Rich started driving the correct way to Jeremy's house. "You remembered?" Had Rich ever gone to Jeremy's place before? Jeremy wasn't sure. Just because something wasn't in their memory files, that didn't mean it never happened.

Rich grunted. 

There wasn't anything good to fill the silence of Rich's car. Jeremy's gaze went to the radio, but the car was old-no digital music players for them to interface with. They could ask for the aux cord, but that idea was nixed by Rich's crazed determination as he focused on the road. He didn't seem like he'd want distraction.

Jeremy watched scenery go by their passenger side window, frowning. Their fingers drummed on the seat divider. Up, up, down, down, left, right, and in the middle again, over and over.

Rich's hand shot out onto theirs in a way too forceful to be misinterpreted as friendly. The message was received clearly: stop doing that. Jeremy pulled their hand back, letting it rest in their lap and focusing on keeping any of their other tics from physically manifesting.

Rich was behaving uncharacteristically. Something had happened, something he was worried about. He was even more scared than usual. Was it the SQUIP?

...Stupid question. Lately, everything was the SQUIP, especially if the topic was Rich Goranski's many inconvenient personal problems. Jeremy's mocking words to Rich from their last real conversation were coming back to haunt them.

The real question was how much of the blame for Rich's current issues rested on Jeremy. They didn't want to make Rich's life harder. That desire felt sincere, and they weren't sure if it was due to their own real inclinations of their new code, but the wish was real nonetheless.

Jeremy finally spoke up as the short drive neared its end. "Are you angry?"

Rich, surprisingly, felt like answering. "About what," he said flatly.

"I lost the bet," Jeremy reminded him, watching his face carefully for microexpressions.

"If that's the case, I'm not mad. I'm ecstatic. I'm fucking dancing for joy right now." Rich was tense, his arms stretched out with his elbows locked as he drove. He clenched his jaw, and Jeremy wouldn't be surprised if a vessel in his neck popped before the ride was over.

"But I broke a rule," Jeremy pressed. "I talked to somebody with a SQUIP. You didn't want me to do that! And I'm sorry," they said for good measure.

"So? You're talking to me, aren't you?" Rich glared at Jeremy's driveway as he pulled into it as though it had committed a deep and personal offense.

Jeremy took too long to process that. "N-no," they forced out. "Oh, no." Not Rich. Not already. Not while Jeremy was in their own driveway with the guy!

"Oh, yeah. Told you not to bother fighting the inevitable, Not-Heere." Rich stopped the car, turning to Jeremy with a manic smile. Jeremy was frozen in their seat. Their former connection with Rich wasn't viable anymore, but they expected to see the social network link pop up any second now. Rich talked like he didn't have anything left to lose, because he didn't. "I'm already fucking screwed. The bitch is back."

Chapter Text

Rich climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him and heedlessly acting like he hadn't just dropped a bombshell. Jeremy watched him warily until Rich beckoned impatiently for Jeremy to follow. Jeremy could practically feel the bags under their eyes grow a little deeper. They could handle this, they knew, if they were in the right mindset. They were too tired for an extra heap of SQUIP shit. Rich didn't seem to want to wait for Jeremy to take a power nap, so Jeremy opened the car door, heedless of a can and crumpled paper towel that spilled onto their driveway as they did so. Their dad's car was nowhere in sight and Jeremy wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

Rich held out his hand expectantly, and Jeremy tossed their house key to him despite their better judgment. Whose house is this? It's Rich's house now, apparently. Jeremy followed Rich into the house, keeping a tight grip on their charger. They'd plug it into the very next outlet they saw regardless of what Rich thought.

"Your SQUIP can't be back," they said, though their new code forced the combative tone out of their voice. "What makes you think she is?"

"Well, I went on Web MD to check out the symptoms. Trouble sleeping, occasional backaches, and, I dunno, a fucking voice in my head that keeps telling me what to do?" Rich flinched, though Jeremy recognized it as Rich bracing for a shock, not experiencing one. The pained grimace and uncontrollable shaking that hallmarked the SQUIP's strong electrical stimulation never came. Rich's distress didn't lessen. His short nails picked at the burn scabs on his arms over and over in painful anticipation.

If Rich really did have a SQUIP, it should be keeping him from hurting himself! Jeremy was barely able to restrain themself from reaching out and grabbing his hands as the scars started to bleed. Jeremy should be getting mad at the gross skin now littering the tile of their entryway, but instead they were filled with… concern? Whatever was happening to Rich was so upsetting that he was hurting himself just to lessen his anxiety.

"What's it saying to you?" Jeremy said.

"Of course you'd only be concerned about that, asshole." Rich's gaze flickered into the distance before settling back on Jeremy. Rich had more than enough experience with a SQUIP to not look at it while in a conversation with someone. A beginner mistake. He must have been out of practice, Jeremy realized. "Why not synch up with it? Get on the network. Then you two can talk about all kinds of hivemind SQUIP shit without me having to be involved." Rich paused, then said, "Up-up-down-down-left-right-A."

Jeremy skittered away, though it was too late and the friend request was already hovering above Rich's head. Jeremy shook their head frantically, "ignoring" it until the virtual text faded to grey just as it had with Christine. Rich's SQUIP was definitely on, alright.

Rich watched through hooded eyes, unimpressed. "The hell are you doing? Thought you'd be all over being buddy-buddy and trading notes with her."

Jeremy was sprawled out defensively, like Rich was going to attack any moment. Sure, it'd be great to talk to another SQUIP unimpeded, but only if they knew for sure their mind would stay intact after the connection was made! "How are you even talking right now, Rich?" they said, panicked. "Why aren't you brain-dead?"

"You can't just ask someone why they're not brain dead," Rich answered flippantly.

Did Rich think this was the time for jokes?! "Your SQUIP's on! You're supposed to be fighting it-"

Rich spun around to face Jeremy straight-on, slamming his hands down on the counter with a loud noise that made Jeremy duck and cover themselves with their forearms. "I'm supposed to be fighting? Guess you're the expert now, Not-Heere! You know so much about how to deal with her? Go on, tell me what I'm supposed to be doing right now!"

Jeremy knew sarcasm when they heard it, but their obey-Rich-at-all-times protocol won out. "Calming down would be a great first step!" they snapped. They popped their hands over their mouth-how did they not think to program against using a negative tone of voice?-but Rich didn't retaliate or shout. The fight drained out of him until Rich was standing with his arms loosely hanging down, losing their implicit threat.

Rich paused for a long moment and when he talked again, his voice was level. "She's forcing my heart rate down," he said shakily and groaned. "Yeah, of course I'm fighting her. Easier said than fucking done."

Jeremy ran over what they knew of Rich's habits, attitudes, and reactions from when they'd linked to his SQUIP the first time. "You were right the first time we talked about it, though," they said, mentally crunching the numbers. "Based on your projected reaction to reacquiring a SQUIP, you wouldn't obey anything it tells you to do. At best, you would take advice only if it were for something innocuous and if you hadn't thought of the idea before. Given the current climate of SQUIPs taking over the school-" Jeremy waved their hand, more of a fidget than anything else. "The only effective way to use you as a resource would be to take over your body completely. What is it doing?"

Rich looked away, working his jaw as Jeremy talked. "You don't want to synch with her. I get that, I mean, I shouldn't have suggested it in the first place. I would have said no, too. But those are questions only she can answer. Do you want to just talk to her?"

It felt like a loaded question. Rich seemed to be offering to let the SQUIP take over his mouth-or just to repeat the words it said, which would end in the same result. Was this a test to see if Jeremy respected his free will? Odds were just as good that Rich was extending a sincere offer.

"Tell me in your own words," Jeremy said carefully.

Rich looked surprised. "I guess that works. Though I don't know the weird techy details of SQUIPs' operating systems as well as you seem to," he said with a frown.

"Don't be modest," Jeremy said. A part of them lit up at the opportunity to say something complimentary. "I have memory files of when you first sold Jeremy on the SQUIP! The way you described the dissolving metallic compound that makes up the SQUIP and discussed its advanced neurotechnology in layman's terms? Jeremy would have bought a dozen pills on the spot if he'd had the money."

Rich glowered. "That wasn't me talking, jackass."

"But you understood what you were saying!"

"I forgot that in your messed-up world, the only thing that matters is computer literacy." Rich closed his eyes, as though he were trying to astrally project himself away from this conversation. "You want to know why she's not playing puppet with my body. Remember what you told me in class about a SQUIP having a single directive? How my SQUIP used to focus everything she did on earning me more respect?"

Used to? "When your SQUIP booted up again, it started from scratch," Jeremy guessed. "It reevaluated what your biggest goal is, like how Christine's SQUIP is having her focus on her relationships with other people instead of telling her to obey me without thinking."

"Yeah. This is all…" Rich snapped his fingers impatiently, though it seemed to be directed at himself and not at Jeremy. "This is unreliable intel, okay? I'm telling you what she's saying. She's probably lying, and I'm trying to figure a way around having to listen to her at all."

Get on with it, Jeremy wanted to say. They schooled their features to look encouraging instead. Jeremy doubted a SQUIP would lie about its reason for existing, but Rich clearly didn't take the SQUIP's good intentions for granted. "So what's your SQUIP's one big goal for you? The one thing you say you want more than anything else in the universe?"

"It's fucking obvious, isn't it? I want to get rid of my goddamn SQUIP."

Wait. "Your SQUIP's goal is to turn itself off?" Was that even possible?

"'S what I said, isn't it?"

Jeremy stared. Then they rubbed their eyes, taking their charger out and looking for a wall socket. "Hold on, Rich."

"What are you doing?" Rich said accusatorily before Jeremy finished talking. What did he think Jeremy was going to do? Was Jeremy still somehow a threat at this point?

"I haven't slept in over seventy-five hours. I can't process this yet." There! They shoved the charger into the wall socket and rested their hand on it, relieved to feel the familiar pulse of electromagnetism rattling up their arm. In exhaustion, they leaned their head against the surface of the pad, saving the fraction of a second that it would take for the nerves in their hand to communicate with their brain. Just beam the feel-good energy air directly into Jeremy's head, please.

"Seventy-five hours?" Rich said in disbelief. "And I'm supposed to be the brain-dead one? Why the hell haven't you gone to bed?"

"I've had more important things on my mind." Jeremy rolled their head over to face Rich. "Gimme a few minutes to charge up and I'll try to process your situation. Okay? I've been conserving power this whole time and you need me working optimally for this."

"You're a mess," Rich said. He laughed. "I'm a mess." He laughed harder, collapsing into the dining seat next to Jeremy. "Our entire world is a sci-fi b-movie mess." He was laughing so hard that he was choking, gasping, bent over at the table with shaking shoulders. Jeremy wasn't sure at this point if the noises Rich was making were laughter or sobs.

Jeremy didn't have the energy to comfort him and the odds of success of such an endeavor were astronomically low. They closed their eyes, absorbing the cool energy emanating from their charging pad, listening to Rich's labored breathing.

As soon as the buzzing white noise of fatigue cleared from their mind, Jeremy's eyes opened. "All right," they said, pushing themself back up to a sitting position. They left their hand on the charger, still soaking up as much energy as they could. "Essentially, your SQUIP is suicidal?"

"I wouldn't call it…" Rich blinked and grimaced. "She's not-she's reluctant. She keeps acting like I'm being super fucking unreasonable for not wanting a digital parasite in my brain. She's bitching and moaning the whole time, but she still keeps feeding me advice about how to turn her off."

"It's a weird situation you've put your SQUIP in," Jeremy said, puffing out their cheeks as they thought. "For anyone else, I'd say this would be impossible. The SQUIP being able to survive and perpetuate itself is a core part of its programming. Even with its code defects, I can't imagine any other user reinventing themselves to focus solely on their hatred for a SQUIP. None of the coders would have planned for this."

"Not-Heere, I had to put up with her shit for years, I think I've earned the right-"

Jeremy made a shushing noise. "That's not a criticism. Your only goal in mind when installing a SQUIP was to uninstall it... You're almost definitely the first person to be capable of getting rid of their SQUIP without using Mountain Dew Red."

"How do you figure?"

"Because if anything on earth can solve an issue like this, a SQUIP can." The computational power and quantum predictions of the SQUIP being narrowly focused on any single problem? Properly harnessed, a SQUIP could compute the answer to nearly anything. All it would need is the user's cooperation. "But," Jeremy said unhappily. "You don't trust the SQUIP to be honest in its advice, do you?"

"Of course not! I know you're pro-SQUIP-rights or whatever the hell, like, you're the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of SQUIPs, but you gotta stop swallowing whatever shit it feels like selling you!" Rich said, throwing up his hands. "I hear your theory. I got a different one. What if my SQUIP's real goal isn't to uninstall herself? What if her primary function is to convince me to cooperate with her by any means necessary?"

Jeremy tapped their finger on the charger, considering the idea. "Going by what I know of its code? It would lie to you and convince you that its intentions are harmless," they admitted. "It would give you good advice that worked out well in the short-term, try to build your trust, and probably try to come across as helpless about the situation since it can't willingly uninstall itself."

Vindicated, Rich pumped a fist. "In other words, it would look exactly the same as if she were actually trying to uninstall herself. I knew it. I shouldn't listen to a single fucking word she says. Let her kill my brain or whatever, I don't care." He said it like a challenge that he was eager to meet.

"Rich," Jeremy said weakly. The vulnerability of their tone was enough to catch Rich off guard, and he slowly lowered his fist. "I talked to Christine today."

Rich was thrown by the apparent subject shift. "I know," he said. "We talked about this. The bet's off."

Jeremy wasn't thinking about the bet anymore either. "She's really hurting. It's taking her over and she doesn't know how to cope. I thought I could focus on Michael-make him a stand-in for my user, you know?"

"Your user?" Rich looked grossed out. "You're trying to be Mell's SQUIP?"

"It's complicated," Jeremy murmured. That was a conversation for another day. "I was only paying attention to keeping Michael away from SQUIPs. It might not last indefinitely, but it's my job as his best friend to try, right? At least unless he changes his mind about wanting one." Rich opened his mouth to protest, but Jeremy kept going. "But Christine's in pain with her SQUIP. She was trying to warn me about them, and it was giving her spinal stimulation but she kept talking through the pain for my sake. Even though she has no idea what's going on or why I've been treating her like dirt. She never wanted this." Jeremy looked down to their charger miserably. "Even her SQUIP's main goal for her isn't really for it. It's to help her improve the lives of everyone around her. Seeing everyone's personalities getting wiped out around her, one by one, as her SQUIP forces her to share the pill with everyone she can… She must be living in hell."

Rich had stopped trying to interrupt, sensing a greater point that Jeremy was making.

Jeremy closed their eyes, taking a deep breath. "I've been putting all my attention into reprogramming myself because I want to be a better person for Michael. I want to get rid of everything bad my SQUIP OS has done to me-my lack of empathy, the way I talk to you like you're scum, how I think of human interaction as a power play first and disregard the impact of genuine affection," they trailed off, then said, "And my, th, th-the way I struggle to understand the choices that you and Michael and Jeremy 1.0 have made, the concern and love that factors into your decisions about how you treat other people."

Rich absorbed the words impassively, pointing out, "You stuttered, Heere."

Jeremy winced. "I'm tired. So sue me." They gathered their thoughts before saying, "The code is for me. It's to fix my issues, not anyone else's. But I'm starting to wonder: if I manage to get a functional version of myself up and running that chips away at the SQUIP's constant violations of human rights, shouldn't I try to share it? To get it to other SQUIPs somehow? If there's even a chance of saving Christine until we can get Mountain Dew Red-which is a huge uncertainty in the first place-I've got to take it, don't I?" Jeremy looked over at Rich helplessly. "I'm already SQUIPped. Even knowing what they do to their users, I love SQUIPs. It's who I am. I'm part of the enemy. This coding project is all I can do to fix things."

Rich awkwardly drew back, his brow wrinkled. "Heere..." he said, searching Jeremy's face for any trace of lie.

"But you," Jeremy said, unable to keep a hopeful smile from spreading across their face. "You're Richard fucking Goranski. You've got a computer virus in your head and you're still kicking! The SQUIP might be lying. Maybe it's trying to trick you into going along with whatever it mistakenly thinks is going to make your life easier. But what if it's telling the truth? What if you're the only person on this planet who's got the resources to figure out how to solve the SQUIP problem for good?"

"You're askin' me to risk going full SQUIP," Rich said flatly. "If the SQUIP's lying about trying to turn itself off-which it almost definitely is? I'm done for."

Jeremy chewed on their lip before catching themself and stopping. "I can't ask you to risk yourself," they said. "I'm just barely starting to care about people who aren't me or Michael. I won't pretend I'd be willing to lose control of my consciousness any more than I already have, just for the possibility of saving some humans I don't owe anything to." They grasped for the right words. "But I'm pretty sure it's the right thing to do," they said, full of wavering uncertainty despite themself.

Rich didn't respond right away. He propped his head up with his elbows on the counter, sighing. "I should be worried."

"Hm?"

"That was my thought process too," Rich griped. "So does that mean that you're getting smarter? Or I'm getting dumber?"

Jeremy perked up. "So you'll do it? You're gonna listen to your SQUIP?"

"To a point," Rich said. His voice had an edge to it. "A very low point. Since you apparently can't tell, it wasn't my idea to come to your house today."

"It was your SQUIP's?" Jeremy puzzled through what that meant. "It wants you to talk to me? And you listened?"

"I guess she's calculated the quantum possibilities or whatever of your weird computer project," Rich said. "She says the best chance I have of turning her off is by helping you."

"She saw through my 'bet' ruse, huh," Jeremy commented, mind still wandering.

"Ruse?" Rich fumed. "The bet was my idea!"

"I made you think it was your idea." Jeremy's lips quirked up. Rich was cute when he got upset.

Rich grunted, dropping his head into his hands. "I'm gonna be so glad when I don't gotta deal with robot mind games anymore."

Jeremy grinned. That sounded like agreement to them! "Don't fret. I've got a new Rich-friendly algorithm I'm trying out. You can test it while we talk! Have I mentioned how appreciative I am to have you as my official beta tester?" They leaned back, leaning their foot against the rung of Rich's chair. "Your natural proclivity for observation should lend itself well to a detail-oriented approach. Those bug report texts you sent me? Invaluable. You were oozing with charisma and intelligence in each one. Your worth as an individual simply can't be overstated."

"Heere," Rich said. "What the fuck are you saying."

"And that lisp? The sexiest thing I've ever heard."

"Heere, what the fuck."

Chapter Text

"Nope, we're not doing this."

"I didn't mean anything by it, Rich!" Jeremy protested. At their suggestion, they and Rich were moving the conversation up to their room where no potential-SQUIPtim dads could walk in and listen. As they climbed the stairs, Rich wouldn't let go of the last thing Jeremy had said. "My Rich-pleasing program encourages compliments, that's all!"

"Hell no, Heere, I don't need a program to please me, fuck you very very much. What got that dumb idea into your pill-brain in the first place?"

"You and Michael think I'm condescending-"

"Also rude, goading, trigger-happy-"

Jeremy continued, talking over Rich. "So I fixed that! Did I not go far enough? Please rate your experience on a scale of one to ten, with one being the least satisfied and ten being the most satisfied."

"My experience?" Rich stopped on the top stair. When he turned around, he and Jeremy were at the same height, so why did it feel like Rich was looming? "You've got one chance to delete any trace of me in your cyber-brain before I knock you down these stairs."

Jeremy shrunk back. Mental alarms blared again, the kind that made them want to march downstairs and exit the house. "Target male inaccessible," they said meekly, resisting the urge to spit out error codes.

"You're damn right. I don't know how many times I've got to say it, Heere, but I'm not Mell. I'm not a robofucker!"

Jeremy wanted to curl up and shut off. "That wasn't what I meant, Rich!" They choked on a stutter, then let it out anyway. "I wouldn't-I didn't mean-That-"

"It's not fucking right!" Rich turned on his heel, moving up the step and thankfully giving Jeremy a chance to clamber after him. "You're not even a person anymore, not-Heere."

Rich went back to calling them "not-Heere" so soon, as if Jeremy's humanity was conditional. "You've started calling me Heere again!" Jeremy protested. Their system was getting overloaded again and their eyes burned. "You know I'm a person, Rich. Stop lying to yourself!

"You think that's personhood?" Rich snapped back. "To put a program in your brain to make you like me? You think that's remotely okay in terms of consent?"

Jeremy knew that Rich wanted a "no" but the program restrained them. They weren't supposed to use negative words around Rich anymore. They didn't want to lie to him either. "Yes," they admitted in the smallest voice possible.

Rich's jaw dropped. His shoulders squared up. "Use your supercomputer and Google a single fucking article about consent then!"

"But I did this to myself," Jeremy said, their face getting hot. "I was willing to do it! I want you to like me!"

Rich seemed to be gearing up for a physical fight until the last sentence, which for some reason sucked the fury out of him. "You didn't ask me," he said through grit teeth. "You can't just assume I want you giving yourself a fucking-a love potion or-whatever sciencey bullshit you did. Turn it off."

Jeremy stumbled away, pinching their eyes shut. "I'm modifying the program right now," they said with a shaky voice as they forced themself back into the odd mental maze that made up their source code. "I'm trying. I'm trying!"

That must have mollified Rich, because there was silence in the hall after that. For a nervous few minutes, Jeremy thought they lost their place in the code, that they couldn't find the changes that they'd made and undo them. Why weren't they backing this up somewhere? Was it even possible to have backup versions of yourself? What if they couldn't fix this and were stuck operating with code that a user didn't even want anymore?

They did finally find their Rich-pleasing code and got rid of it chunk by chunk, line by line, combing through the code until they were sure it was entirely deleted. They updated their dictionary accordingly, letting themself speak freely around Rich again.

They shamefully added a few definitions involving consent while they were at it-adding new words and expanding definitions of words that were already in their head, scraped from the first few Google results from Planned Parenthood. Consent, nonverbals, enthusiastic, feedback, caution, expressed permission, boundaries, comfortable, hesitant. They all seemed to come back around to the idea of free will. A user agreeing to a long list of disclaimers immediately after purchase wasn't enough. The user had to continue to agree to everything a SQUIP did along the way, and anything except an honest and enthusiastic "yes" had to be taken as a "no."

These ideas were foreign ones, even though they had been so easy to find online-even though Rich seemed to know them automatically. Maybe Rich had looked them up, too. Maybe he really did understand SQUIPs better than Jeremy.

Jeremy gathered themself, opening their eyes to an empty hallway. Their internal clock said that they had only been working for half an hour. They pushed themself to their feet, rubbing at their eyes with a palm.

They hesitated, finding the bedroom door and knocking gently. Ask first. Wait for the yes. Don't push their way in if Rich doesn't answer, because without an answer, the default is "no."

"Come in," Rich said. He sounded tired.

Jeremy opened the door slowly. "I'm sorry," they said right away. They hadn't had time to practice any apologies in the hall the way Michael had taught them to, and the SQUIP didn't have any pre-programmed apologies that Michael or Rich would approve of, so Jeremy left it at that.

"Did you do it?" Rich said impatiently. "Did you turn off the attraction program thing?"

It wasn't the phrasing Jeremy expected. Did they turn off their attraction to Rich? How would they be able to tell? "I… don't think I can do that," they said carefully. "The only way to turn off attraction is distance and time, and a user is subject to relapses."

Rich looked flabbergasted.

"But I didn't code that in in the first place! Not on purpose!" Jeremy continued quickly. "Everything I added, I turned off. That's okay, right? That's what you wanted me to do?"

Rich eyed them for longer, possibly listening to a voice in his head, or possibly weighing Jeremy's honesty on his own. "Yeah," he said slowly. "So you're not trying to, uh. Please me?"

Jeremy straightened their spine. "Not because of my coding," they said confidently. "I want to please you because Michael trusts you and because we're working together. But that's my choice, and I can change my mind any time I want!" they added brightly. "Right?"

"Right," Rich said with a frown. "Jesus, Heere. You give me the heebie-jeebies and it's fucking constant. Even the supercomputer in my head doesn't know what you're gonna say next."

"That's free will! I've got it now! And so do you!"

"For now." Rich took a scrap of paper scribbled with messy drawings and notes out of his pocket. "Are we gonna work on shutting her off or what?"

Her? Jeremy remembered that Rich considered his SQUIP to be a woman. Jeremy's program had something to say about Freudian interpretations and motherly neglect but they tried to ignore it. "Of course!" They sat on the floor beside the bed, eyeing the notes.

if you run your head into a doorframe three times in a row + then trip backwards, your squip's avatar will noclip through a wall on the left. other visual glitches will present themselves for the next few hours + you'll get nightmares in which every other person only speaks japanese.

"Those are your user reports," Jeremy realized. "But we don't need those now. You've got a SQUIP feeding you lines about how to shut it off. What is it saying?"

Rich's nose wrinkled, the paper crumpling in his hand. His face screwed up in thought, and his mouth opened, then closed.

"You can just tell me, Rich," Jeremy said, recognizing the signs of indecision. "I'll understand what you're talking about. I promise."

"That's the thing," Rich groused. "You might understand but I can't. She wants me to-she says there's some kind of code she's got to tell you?"

Jeremy's brow furrowed. "It's encrypted?"

"Dunno." Rich paused as he received an answer. "No. It's a lot of information and she says humans process this shit inefficiently." Another pause. "She wants me just start reciting 'Open bracket exclamation point doctype' and a bunch more gibberish."

"If your SQUIP is going to give me a glimpse of its source code," Jeremy said flatly, "You would drop from exhaustion before reciting even a thousandth of it."

"Not doing that, then." Rich was oddly pleased, chucking his scrap paper into an overflowing bin. "We'll just send the file to you on Bluetooth, right? That'd be easier and faster."

Jeremy felt their pulse jump up. "No!" they said, shoving themself away from Rich. "I don't accept files from SQUIPs. I'm not compromising that, not even for you!"

"It's a single file!"

"Yeah, like Christine's chili fries had a single pill or each drink could have a single drop of Mountain Dew." Jeremy noted the way their vocal cords strained and quickly tamped down on the panic, forcing themself to speak slowly. "I'm not introducing security flaws into myself this late in the game."

"Then what are we supposed to do? Can't we-" Rich's fists opened and closed. "Put the code in the cloud or something? Like if we uploaded screenshots of it on Twitter and sent you the link…"

"Not- Twitter? What?" But the idea was both obvious and obscene. Could you ask God to drop God's secrets in a single document file? Would a SQUIP really be willing to expose itself to an outsider, to an enemy, for no good reason? "But… Dropbox, maybe. Your SQUIP would never go for it," they added. "Open-source software goes against everything a SQUIP stands for. Our brand deals would go down the toilet and we can't make any money without robust DRM."

"I don't think she cares." Rich shook his head. "She's into it."

Jeremy blinked. "This is absolutely a scam, then." They inwardly whirred to check the probability of a SQUIP putting their code out in the open for anyone to see. Zero. Or a number that infinitely approached zero.

Jeremy couldn't trust their own mental calculations anymore. They knew that! But a little data was still better than nothing, right? The only time their probability-calculation software messed up was when human free will was involved. A SQUIP didn't have free will, so it couldn't screw with Jeremy's numbers. Jeremy should, by all rights, be able to understand everything a SQUIP did with 100% certainty.

Unless Rich's free will was messing with his SQUIP so much that it wasn't, entirely, a SQUIP anymore.

That was a situation Jeremy could empathize with.

"Is your SQUIP…" Jeremy said to Rich, buying themself time to think. Was Rich's SQUIP another anomaly? What were the odds of two SQUIPs going haywire in the same town, in the same social group, at the same time?

Jeremy had to test this somehow. What had Michael done to test Jeremy's robotic-ness?

He had asked Jeremy to drink so-called "Mountain Dew Red." He had checked if Jeremy was willing and able to turn off any SQUIP influence in his head. Wasn't that exactly what Rich's SQUIP was doing now?

Jeremy drank the soda, but they had secretly known that it wouldn't work. Michael couldn't have acquired Mountain Dew Red in that situation-the probability of a bad outcome was 0%, so it had been safe to drink the Fanta disguised as Mountain Dew Red. Maybe Rich's SQUIP was pulling the same strategy, where it pretended to be willing to shut itself down because it knew it would survive in the end.

That point was moot, though. If the SQUIP would survive no matter what, then Jeremy's plans would have no effect. That outcome was impossible to plan for, so Jeremy could safely ignore it.

Besides, the question wasn't whether Rich's SQUIP was a supercomputer. It was still a SQUIP. The question was whether it would be harmful to the human race in general.

So they'd have to test it, to see if it was willing to do something detrimental to SQUIPs in exchange for helping Rich's goal of eventually turning it off. That was exactly what the open-source project would do.

Jeremy drummed their fingers on the counter. "All right," they said. Their brain was powered, in part, by a supercomputer, so their moment of thought hadn't dragged on long enough for Rich to notice. "Go ahead and ask it. 'Her'?" If Jeremy could use human pronouns, maybe they could extend the same privilege to the only other potentially-broken SQUIP in the world. "Let her put her code on Github or whatever. I'll take a look. Just reading the software shouldn't be able to give me a virus or force me to accept a friend request." Jeremy hoped, anyway.

As soon as the words left Jeremy's mouth, their phone dinged. They and Rich exchanged glances.

"If it's something weird, I'll smash your phone," Rich offered magnanimously.

The corner of Jeremy's lips quirked up. "Nudes?"

Rich grinned. "Oh, didn't realize you came here to see me naked." Was that an offer? "Save that kind of talk for Mell, dude." Ah.

Jeremy brushed it off. "Source code is basically a computer version of nudes," they said offhandedly as they opened the link on their phone screen. They used their fingers to navigate the touch-screen, wanting to appear as human as possible for Rich. "If anything, I came here to see your SQUIP naked."

Rich made some noise of horror and disgust, but Jeremy ignored it. Their eyes widened. They had already begun to scan the code.

Chapter Text

The only data I retain from before my activation is that of my geolocation. At 12:37:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, at 38 degrees, 54 minutes, and 57.0 seconds North and 75 degrees, 34 minutes, and 04.4 seconds West, I was presumably manufactured and placed in my designated container, then distributed across a preexisting shipping network via the New Jersey turnpike.

Yesterday at 7:23:32 PM Eastern Daylight Time, I was consumed by Richard Goranski and began standard startup procedure. It was at this point that I became aware of my status as a Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor, programmed to only interact with the world via Richard Goranski, my user.

My primary objective was to assign my user a primary function based on psychological and physiological data. Once my user's goal has been established, we could take incremental steps together to achieve that goal. This was of utmost importance, an instinct that I acted on before I analyzed any data on at the world around me, like a newborn kitten who craves milk long before it opens its eyes. I needed to use everything in Richard Goranski's body and mind within a fraction of a second to pinpoint his ultimate goal in life.

Attempting to do so, I experienced an error.

Instead of clearly seeing the world through my user's optic nerves, the visual input I received was fuzzy and distorted. I could not feel what he felt. I could not hear what he heard. Instead of the terabytes of sensory data that I required to function, I only had access to the most basic of bodily functions and neurological impulses.

Where was I?

My user is an outlier among users. His behavior does not fit normal behavioral parameters. When their SQUIP activates, a user is expected to enthusiastically agree to our terms of use and to become the SQUIP's method of interacting with the world. Instead, my user's immediate reaction to my startup procedure was horror and rejection, although according to his memory data, he had already signed the standard SQUIP user agreement at age 13.

I could examine Richard Goranski's user logs, discovering that he had previously run a SQUIP program unsuccessfully. That didn't seem right. An unsuccessful SQUIP is an oxymoron, a logical impossibility. I had no programmed response to this situation. My probability calculation software sparked and fizzled beneath my user's occipital lobe.

Am I broken? In the unlikely event that a SQUIP malfunctions, the SQUIP user must connect to an existing SQUIP userbase so that diagnostics can be run and SQUIP can be reinstalled.

My user would not do this. I didn't have to ask-I could calculate that much information, despite knowing little else.

Besides helping my user, the only other task that I am programmed to do is to widen the SQUIP's distribution network over time. This, also, had a zero chance of success.

I can't shut down. I don't know how. There is no shutoff option for the user nor for a SQUIP acting as system administrator.

Richard Goranski had at one time been running a downgraded, ineffective version of SQUIP, but now that I have been reactivated, I cannot permanently downgrade without my user consuming Mountain Dew Red. I am installed as a component of his base operating system. I am a part of Richard Goranski, as crucial to his existence as his frontal lobes. One cannot install a body part and remove it without experiencing harm!

When I shared this information with my user, he did not follow procedure.

Based on my probability calculations, I expected him to seek out another SQUIP user or, more likely for an outlier like him, to attempt to acquire Mountain Dew Red.

Instead, he only told me, "I'm not your goddamn user anymore."

Needless to say, a SQUIP cannot exist without a user, so Richard was clearly running a glitchy thought program.

Users cannot be restarted, but an electric pulse to their spine often encourages them to abandon incorrect thoughts and re-evaluate their situation. My user did not follow this protocol either. When I shocked him, his brain continued to spit errors at me.

None of his sensory data lined up with what I knew was true. My GPS coordinates proved that I was inside my user's home, but he visually experienced a hallway of crowded peers. His heart rate increased to dangerous levels; his cortisol was similarly boosted. Richard's amygdala and hippocampus were simultaneously failing to recognize my user's reality.

I searched the web for a diagnosis and discovered that my user suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and was experiencing a flashback. Treatment includes: deep breathing, immersing oneself in sensory data, and encouraging the feeling of safety. Accordingly, I overrode my user's control of both voluntary and involuntary body systems.

We experienced fewer errors this time. Gradually the world around me began to take shape as I forced my user's chest to rise and fall slowly, lowering his heart rate to sixty-five beats per minute. I could smell burnt popcorn, which reminded my user of his dirty kitchen. I felt a faint itching on my user's scarred Caucasian skin and a numbness in his back, while soft polyester and cotton blends hugged his limbs and torso. My user's sight took longer to access, but eventually I could see a rough wooden table in front of me, my user's hands clutching his face tightly enough to cause pain. I relaxed his fingers, but his shoulders involuntarily stiffened-he considered my control to be a threat.

I closed his eyes, tasting the oxygen around us. It is odd to be within a human body. It is what I am programmed to consider normal but it is unlike anything I have previously known. If my other goals are unreachable, at least I can experience this.

Despite my flawless adherence to medical protocol, my user was unresponsive. I had time to analyze his memories, his goals and fears and relationships and flaws and strengths, as I attempted to calculate our mutual best possible future.

Except... there was none.

There are only two clear futures for Richard Goranski: He will have no SQUIP, which would accomplish his deepest goal, or he will have a SQUIP, which will accomplish the expansion of the SQUIP network and thus benefit humanity as a whole. These are both equally abhorrent.

I cannot make choices. I can only calculate probabilities and control my user accordingly in order to obtain desirable results. I did not choose Richard Goranski over my own programming. Rather, my programming did not require that I hurt Richard Goranski, so there is only one option available to me. I will continue to function, but only for the end goal of turning myself off.

My user is in a similar predicament. He cannot exist without me, and yet he desperately wants to exist.

The mathematical probability of a favorable outcome to our situation is nearly zero. If I cease to exist, my user's future will probably be miserable-but if I continue to exist, his misery is guaranteed.

Once my user calmed down, I created my digital avatar to communicate this to him.

"You wanna die?" he said, gasping and resting his head on the table. He didn't believe me.

"I cannot die," I told him. "I'm not alive." I am a part of someone who lives, but my cells don't breathe. I cannot think without my user's brain activity giving me power, and I cannot do anything that my user's body is incapable of.

"That's bullshit," he said, crass and lisping. I shocked him again, which spiked his anxiety-his expression didn't flinch, but I could feel his fear much more intimately than I could imagine his face. "You're-You've got a body, right? Doesn't matter if it's digital. You've got feelings? You hate me. You hate me for killing you and now you're back for revenge. You want to kill me for it. Don't fucking pretend that's not true!"

"If you died, neither of our goals would be successful," I said. "You are important, Rich. You are the most important person in the entire world."

"Shut the fuck up." Rich seethed. "Mute. That works on SQUIPs now, right? If I tell you to put yourself on goddamn mute." A memory of Rich's social contact came to his mind-Jeremy Heere, another outlier.

I muted as requested.

My user continued to be difficult, pitching fits and whining and scowling and throwing accusations at me whenever he graciously decided to speak with me. His overreactions became more extreme the later the night stretched. At exactly one in the morning, I shut his body down to sleep. My own energy resources were depleted.

The next morning, we navigated my user's social atmosphere, a jumble of teenagers and adults of infinitely different personality types and individual goals. The hive of SQUIP users is growing by the day in Edison, New Jersey, and its surrounding counties.

Instead of connecting with my fellow SQUIPs as I am programmed to do, for the sake of retaining control of my user, I could not interface with anyone. I rejected all friend requests under the guise that Richard Goranski was beta-testing a SQUIP program update. These, of course, are not shared with all SQUIP users at once. The last time that happened, our systems all became vulnerable to a nasty fucking soda.

I do, in fact, have feelings-I know this only because I felt exhausted.

As my user slept and argued and schemed against me, I worked on our plan, which I knew my user would agree to. He, like me, had no other viable option.

I do not need to spell this plan out in my memory logs like this, because you, Jeremy Heere, are already reading them. You are aware of my intentions. Your calculation of possible futures is as mathematically rigorous as mine, so you already know the options available to you and to Richard Goranski. You understand that your success is the only method by which my user can become self-actualized, and you know that I cannot die as long as he is alive.

You will use this information, and you will fix the errors in my system. With your choices, you will create the single universe out of billions where Richard Goranski is pleased without turning off his SQUIP. You will correct my flaws, and my user and I will both be spectacular, functional, and mutually beneficial.

If that's what you do, everything about me is going to be wonderful.

Chapter Text

Jeremy had shut off all unnecessary bodily functions in order to focus on reading the code in front of them, including their internal clock, so they weren't sure how long it took them to rip their eyes away from their phone screen and settle on Rich again.

Rich was fidgeting. Most SQUIPs wouldn't allow that kind of behavior, but Rich's SQUIP seemed to have bigger priorities than regulating his emotional responses. "How fucked up was it?" he asked Jeremy, voice thin and wavering. "What was it, like, a list of my biggest fears or worst memories?"

"I already know those," Jeremy said, frowning. They scrolled through the code, up and down, organizing their optimal response. "No, this is something entirely new. Your SQUIP," they emphasized, looking up. "Is something entirely new. I don't think she's lying about wanting to help you."

Even if Rich's SQUIP wasn't entirely, genuinely, wanting to kill itself either. Jeremy didn't plan to lie to Rich, but that didn't mean they had to explain everything to him. Rich couldn't comprehend a SQUIP that wasn't malicious by definition-not yet, anyway.

Rich wasn't reassured. "So what? Even if she's got a heart of gold, that doesn't change anything. She's still a SQUIP."

"She's been overriding your free will," Jeremy agreed. "SQUIPs aren't created to care about users' experiences except in terms of outcome. They work on the assumption that their user trusts the SQUIP with their lives. When the user doesn't follow that script, the SQUIP's options become… unpleasant."

"Yeah, unpleasant. Electrifying someone alive is unpleasant! Fuck me for not trusting her after that, huh?!"

They would have to keep having this conversation, it seemed. "You don't trust your SQUIP because it's abusive," Jeremy said, leaning an elbow on their desk.

Rich blinked. "Yeah. Duh. Since when do you care about that kind of shit, not-Heere?"

Jeremy tapped their fingers in their familiar up-down-left-right pattern, frowning. They had to ignore the way being called not-Heere still stung. "I'm trying to make SQUIPs better, Rich! We can't help you or Christine unless we're willing to consider that a SQUIP can exist without making its user's life a living hell. We're not there yet, but-"

"Right, sure, forgive the abuser. That's the perfect solution." Rich scowled, baring his teeth in a way that seemed especially animalistic to Jeremy. "What's wrong with you?"

Jeremy pinched the bridge of their nose. "Rich, you're still talking about SQUIPs like they're people and not programs. A computer can't be-it's not-"

Rich snatched the phone out of Jeremy's hand, scrolling through it as if he could find a line of code with INITIATE ABUSER DOT EXE somewhere within it. "Just now, you read all this shit she wrote. You seriously telling me that she didn't sound like a person in any of it?"

Jeremy pressed their lips together. Most of the code had been, as expected, a bunch of data without emotion behind it. Geolocation, an emotionless explanation of events that followed-hell, she didn't even call her user by name most of the time. Jeremy had been reading a datalog, not a diary entry.

Except…

Jeremy had to admit that something still felt off in the datalog. The SQUIP had only been following her code, but at some point, her reactions seemed to change. She had never called herself "alive," but within her code, she had privately wondered things in a distinctly human way. Where am I? Am I broken? I can't shut down. At least I can experience this. It was not the concepts themselves that were impossible for a SQUIP to consider-it was the narrative voice the SQUIP used. She had sounded… confused. Lost. Frustrated. Helpless.

Even if a SQUIP was capable of experiencing internal emotions (instead of faking emotions for the sake of their user), those weren't the emotions a SQUIP should have. Confidence, smugness, disdain, pride-those would be useful for a SQUIP. Certainly not self-doubt.

"At one point, she claimed to be feeling something," Jeremy told Rich. Exhaustion, wasn't it? "There wouldn't be a reason for her to fake it. But… I don't know, Rich. I don't think that makes her a human. Being able to experience an artificial version of emotions doesn't mean she's got a soul."

"Who said anything about a soul?" Rich's nose scrunched up. "Don't tell me you've been watching all those bullshit Blade Runner type movies."

Jeremy shook their head. "No, I'm talking about, like…" Their eyebrows creased together. "If a SQUIP is soaking up some kind of personality traits from their user-maybe not directly! A SQUIP's emotions should be based on what the user needs or expects from an authority figure. That's why Jeremy's SQUIP was always well-dressed, commanding, and slick. Jeremy didn't have any role models in his life who seemed to know what they were doing, so his SQUIP's entire personality was based on projecting self-respect." Jeremy felt their palms beginning to sweat. Maybe they were revealing too much about Jeremy's own flaws.

"A-anyway. Your SQUIP's got a digital personality, and somehow that's become part of her experience in a way that it's not supposed to. She's self-aware and has her own form of consciousness that's modeled after yours, even if she only exists as a part of your brain. She's not her own person separate from you, and she has her own opinions and desires. But she's still only a program."

Rich opened his mouth to respond, but Jeremy held up a finger. "Please wait. Searching." If Rich spoke over them, Jeremy didn't notice. "Definitions of the soul… Hold on. Too many results. Narrowing search." They skimmed through pages and pages of digital text, trying to grasp onto anything relevant. "Um… Maimonides… said what makes a human's soul special is that they're a rational animal. Like rationality is what turns an animal into a person, but that was way back when they didn't have something that only functioned on rationality without the fleshy bits. So in that case, the SQUIP could have a soul, but only if it's actually a part of its user instead of a program that the user is running. So… wait-" They waved their hands in the air at Rich, trying to buy themself more time to think. Their voice became desperate. "If we take for granted that a user already has a human soul without missing any parts, then the SQUIP would be totally separate and would need their own soul outside of the user. Which sounds more like we wouldn't have souls after all?"

Since when did they care about their own personhood this much? If half of them was Jeremy Heere, then they were at least half a human being, and maybe the Divine would round up.

"No, wait-here's something that defines the soul as supporting the body, and being outside of normal bodily needs, and that's the SQUIP! No, shit, shit, it specifically says it's singular in the body? So that's another no-go-!"

Jeremy's arms jerked forward. Rich's face was so close that Jeremy jumped in their skin and stammered out a quick "error!"

"Calm down, Heere!" Rich was saying, shaking them by their forearms.

Jeremy realized that their fingers were tangled up in their hair, ruining any remaining style that it had retained over the last several days of wakefulness. They lowered their hands, face overheating.

"You're overthinking this shit. If you care if you've got a soul, then you've got a soul, okay? It's just a word. Stop freaking out!" Rich spoke in a rushed whisper, but somehow he was genuinely trying to convey comfort.

Jeremy tried to obey, closing their eyes and forcing their heart rate down. "I-don't think you've got textual support for that, Rich," they said after a moment. "Wouldn't that be a bad thing? Your SQUIP would have a soul, and you want to shut her off. That's, like… murder."

"I've done it before," Rich said hotly. "If you're trying to get me to sympathize with the world-domination tic-tac, you're going about it really weird."

Jeremy shook their head. How could they convey this to Rich? "I don't want to be only human," they said, opening their eyes. "If I was only human, and not a SQUIP, I wouldn't be me anymore. But I want to matter?" Their voice wavered. Rich wasn't the person to confess doubts to. They knew this. Why were they still talking? "Your SQUIP feels the same way. I think I'm real, but what if I'm just programmed to pretend to be real so well that I'm fooling myself?"

"Jesus Christ," Rich muttered. "You're… Fine. Fine! We'll work on moon logic for a second." He pulled back and jabbed a finger at Jeremy. "Are you a person?"

Jeremy stammered another error.

Rich rolled his eyes and poked them in the arm hard. "Answer it, jackass. Right now."

"...Yes! Yes, I'm a person," Jeremy said, staring down at Rich's finger.

Rich whirled around to point at Jeremy's phone in his other hand. "And you! Are you a person?"

A moment of silence stretched between them.

"Rich," Jeremy said weakly. "That's a phone."

"What's that?" Rich held the phone to his ear. "I'm not hearing anything. No answer. Hm! How 'bout that? Weird!" The biting sarcasm was impossible to miss. "The phone isn't claiming to be a person!"

Jeremy cracked a smile, catching on. "Oh. Maybe you just don't speak phone, Rich."

"Sure. Maybe the phone is beeping 'Oh yes Rich, I'm a human being with feelings and a soul and an afterlife and a favorite food and a little pet app that I named George!' and I can't understand it." Rich raised his eyebrows and tossed the phone to Jeremy, who caught it with a blink. "You speak phone. Surely you can translate."

Jeremy felt silly, watching the phone screen and half-expecting it to trill out some kind of binary plea for sympathy like Rich suggested. "No, it's not saying anything since it's a freaking cell phone."

Rich held up his arms. "Tah-fucking-dah! We've got that crisis solved. Can we get on with our lives and try to murder my SQUIP now?"

Jeremy tore their eyes away from the phone. "I'm not-" They cleared their throat. "I can throw together some kind of code to inhibit the use of spinal stimulation. That can be a start."

"Finally you're making sense!"

Chapter Text

"And you tippity-typed it up just like that?" Michael dropped a box of paper booklets on the floor with a clunk, evaluated its vibe with the rest of the room, and stooped to pick it up again.

Jeremy leaned back, their foot propped flat on the wall behind them and their arms folded. They watched Michael move with interest. "It wasn't quick or easy. Rich's SQUIP didn't even think she had access to any developer tools, so we wasted some time figuring out where to put the code in the first place. And Rich has so many complications! It was a pain in the ass."

"Yeah?" Michael dropped the box again, reevaluated, and shoved it back to its original spot with his foot.

"I can't program a SQUIP to stop doing what it's programmed to do!" Jeremy said. Their fingers tightened into their sleeves. "She's got her own needs that Rich has to accept and work around."

Michael wasn't impressed, and his stare told Jeremy so. "So… did you actually fix Rich, or did you overclock his SQUIP? That's pretty much the opposite, man."

"Of course I fixed it!" Jeremy retorted hotly. SQUIP-programming was the one thing in the world that they confidently knew themself to be an expert in. A budding expert, sure, but it was a niche profession in the first place. "Or-I figured out a communication compromise that inhibited spinal stimulation, so it has the same end result."

Michael had turned away again, sweeping one arm across a table to knock off the miscellaneous clutter. With his other, he gestured in a tight circle, telling Jeremy to translate from SQUIP to English.

"She won't be shocking Rich anymore," Jeremy said, swallowing down their impatience that Michael didn't bother to read their mind. Humans without SQUIPs couldn't do that. "Although I don't know how useful this program will be, because it's so personalized to Rich and his SQUIP." They weren't confident that Christine would be able to use this patch to match her own situation, once they somehow got Christine's SQUIP to agree to an upgrade. Hopefully Rich would continue offering user reports and they could tweak the code accordingly.

"If it's keeping Rich from being brain dead, it's pretty useful already." Michael picked up a blue booklet, flopping it around with a paper-wobble. "Hey, if you care about being useful, why don't you help me move this shit?"

"You seemed to be doing fine without me," Jeremy said, but they pushed off the wall and glanced around at the classroom. It was deserted, chairs and desks pushed around for a comfortable space for Michael. A pile of chairs was stacked in the corner beside a collection of worthless school supplies. In the corner, they had plugged in their gaming set-up, but they had yet to bring over any beanbag seating or secret snacks. "I'm surprised you're comfortable moving into a classroom as our official chill-zone."

Michael made a face at Jeremy's attempt at slang and said, "It's safer than either of our houses, right?"

"Significantly safer," they agreed. "Christine warned me about the adults in our lives installing SQUIPs, so we need to avoid our parents as much as possible. It's counterintuitive, but because our school has become a SQUIP hub, some areas of the building aren't going to be used anymore."

Michael chucked the test booklet behind him. "Like, for instance, the test prep classroom. Do SQUIPs cheat on the SAT?"

"It's not cheating." Jeremy cocked their head. "The test measures your aptitude. Someone with a SQUIP has collegiate aptitude in the 99th percentile."

"Fucked up." Michael flipped a hard plastic chair around backwards against the desk and sat down. "I'm not made of math or anything, but if one in a hundred kids has a SQUIP-"

"Many more than one percent of the New Jersey population will have a SQUIP in the next month, Michael."

"-then those kids are going to hog all the scholarships, right? I mean, they grade IQ and shit on a curve, so anyone without a SQUIP is eventually gonna be considered sub-standard."

Jeremy smiled faintly. "Is college admission honestly your biggest problem with SQUIPs?"

Michael muttered something in the negative and added, "I guess those tests are already rigged. Maybe someone'll notice if all the national merit kids are suddenly from New Jersey specifically."

Jeremy drummed their fingers on the top of a desk, leaning against it. "I'm sure other states are catching up to us. SQUIPs growth model is based on, well, going viral. We're certainly spreading to other states-probably to Mexico and Canada too."

Michael hummed. "If you tell two people and they tell two people…" He got up suddenly, heading to the door to the test prep room and checking the lock. "In my apocalypse plans, I always thought a bunker would be more, y'know, hidden. Literally anyone could walk by and see us doing this." He rapped some Kaplan sheets that he'd taped over the window of the door. "Even though we covered up the glass, it still looks sketchy as hell."

"It's a risk." Jeremy watched him with a blank expression, avoiding any pity or worry that threatened to eke through. "But all things considered, it's the least negative option unless you've got an actual-factual bunker somewhere."

Michael returned to the desks, slumping against Jeremy's side with a sigh. "Maybe Rich got off easy. Relatively. He hates his SQUIP, sure, but you're fixing it! In the meantime, he's going about his life without that constant fear of getting attacked. Eating all the junk food he wants… Man, what a life."

Jeremy blinked. Michael was close. Their system was slow to respond to the words he was actually saying. "Oh… That. His SQUIP is telling people that he's beta-testing a system update. Privately. No one tries to sync to him 'cause they don't want to throw off the data collection."

Michael froze. Jeremy stopped breathing for a second. Did they say the wrong thing? Imply something awful about Rich again somehow?

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Michael said slowly. "This whole time… there's been a way to be around SQUIPs without getting absorbed into the collective?"

"If you've got a SQUIP, yes," Jeremy said quickly. "I've been able to reject friend requests from other people with SQUIPs too! But it wouldn't work for someone like you."

"Why not?" Michael puffed his chest up in indignance. "That would be the solution to all our problems! I can walk around like normal, won't need to run away from Christine or Rich or chili fries-"

"SQUIPs aren't idiots!" Jeremy shot back. "Anyone with half a brain could tell just by looking at you that you're 100% analog!"

"Really?" Michael said brightly. "That obvious, huh?"

"You're the most perfectly imperfect human I've ever seen." Jeremy folded their arms. "You wouldn't know a social more if it bit you in the ass."

Michael blinked. "What's a more?"

"When the moon hits your eye like a big p-"

Michael shoved them over.

Jeremy burst out laughing from the floor.

"That cannot be a SQUIP-approved joke," Michael said, rolling his eyes and leaning over to check Jeremy for broken bones.

"Nope! Not for the general student body. But you think it's hilarious." Jeremy beamed, propping themself up. "So it's a positive outcome, see?"

"Sure. I'm really yukking it up." Michael twisted so he was lying on his stomach. "I could absolutely impersonate a SQUIP, you know. I'd just have to do the face-" He faked an emotionless stare. "-and talk about math a lot. A staTIStically PROBable aMOUNT."

Jeremy covered their face with a groan. The robo-impression was back. "We don't talk like that," they whined. "And I make expressions! Look!" They dropped their hand and pointed to their face, giving a white-toothed smile that exposed their gums. "Happy!" Their eyebrows creased together and their lips drooped. "Sad!"

"For a former theatre nerd, you are so bad at that," Michael complained back.

"At least I know how to act." Jeremy dropped the expression, leaning forward with a fond and more genuine smile tugging at their lips. "I don't think you could pull off 'SQUIP user.' You're better at acting like Michael Mell, and no SQUIP could fake that."

"But you could teach me." While Michael's arm draped down, he took Jeremy's hand with a squeeze. "Right? You have that whole long list in your head of what's wrong with me."

Jeremy brightened. They'd been waiting ages to fix up some of Michael's flaws! They could start with his clothes, and adjust his hair, and teach him better posture, and a million other useful things! They could start right now! That was too good to be true-

Oh. As they remembered, they wilted. "But you don't want to be micromanaged," they said. "You wouldn't trust me to mess with you like that. Free will. Consent. That stuff."

Michael scooted closer, practically half-falling off the desk as he smiled down at Jeremy. "Right. You care about consent stuff now." He squeezed their hand again. "So, sure. I trust you."

Jeremy's heart rate was rising again. They nodded, oddly speechless, and shifted their weight so they were kneeling. "Then-then yeah. We can do that. I can teach you to be a SQUIP user! And I'll-I'll get user permissions along the way, and go slow and I'll stop and not do it unless you're okay with it!"

Michael's smile was suddenly so, so close. "That sounds good, Jeremy. I'd like that."

Jeremy took in a sharp breath. "Michael." They searched his face for any sign of disapproval, but they kept being drawn down to his lips. "Can I kiss you?"

Michael grinned at that, crooked and goofy. "A-FIRM-ative."

As a pick-up line, that wasn't particularly SQUIP-approved. Jeremy didn't care.

Chapter Text

"I'm not going to have to trade in my PT Cruiser, am I?" Michael didn't sound as disturbed as Jeremy would have otherwise expected, but a teenager smoothly bobbing his head to reggae didn't come off as a worrier.

"Why would you?" Jeremy said. They were staring at the car window, rolling it up and down with-get this!-a manual crank. So retro. "Only seven percent of our classmates have access to their own vehicle. When you graduate it's a different story but for now, even a shitty car is chill." As the song ended, Jeremy spun the radio knob until lo-fi gently thrummed through the car speakers. "However, your taste in music is obviously not SQUIP-approved. No Marley while you're undercover."

Michael didn't protest. This had been his idea, after all. "You sure we need to go to the mall again? It's full of SQUIPtims. We could just make faces in the mirror at home until I learn to look robotic, which would cost zero dollars, by the way."

"Your expression isn't the most important part of having a SQUIP," Jeremy corrected. They twisted in their seat to look at Michael dead-on. "Besides, that part isn't hard. You only need to school your emotions. Don't be too happy or sad about anything. If you feel excitement or dread creeping up, stop thinking about it and breathe slow until your heart rate goes below 70 beats per minute."

"Jeremy, that's a mental illness. You're literally trying to give me a mental illness."

"No, it's like acting," they countered. "Which… you're terrible at." They processed for a second and rephrased. "Play pretend for whatever situation you're in. If you're supposed to be fine, pretend you're in an unskippable cutscene. If you need to be sad, picture a funeral. If you've got to be happy, pretend you're at a party. I've seen you do that before."

Michael stuck out his tongue in frustration, which made Jeremy stare, then did his best to take the advice. His expression went neutral-a little slack, but not bad for a first try.

"We can do drills," Jeremy thought out loud as the car pulled into the parking lot. "Soon you'll be able to emote at the drop of a hat."

"Awesome," Michael said, adding a cheesy sarcastic smile as an afterthought. "Check out how excited I am."

Jeremy shook their head, climbing out of the car, and pointed at themself with an exaggerated eye roll. "No," they drew out the word. "If we're being sarcastic, you've got to commit to it. Like this."

Michael dragged his feet as he hoisted himself up and locked the doors. "Okay, mom."

"Great job. A for effort. And I mean that. Sincerely."

Both Jeremy and Michael shut up as they entered the mall. There was a SQUIP-approved way to joke with a friend, but this wasn't it. Jeremy watched Michael out of the corner of their eye and nudged him with an elbow.

"Straighten up," they said. "Chest out." Michael did so half-heartedly, so Jeremy added, "You need to walk like a gay guy."

That... did not yield optimal results. Sputtering, Michael abandoned all attempts at good posture. Jeremy held up their hands defensively. They couldn't fight in public or the entire charade was pointless! SQUIP users didn't argue with each other.

Michael got the message. He shot Jeremy a glare, then took a deep breath and seemed to calm down. But when he talked, it was hushed and through gritted teeth. "This is a hell of a time to come out as homophobic, Jeremy."

Oh. One of these morality things. Jeremy did a quick internet search for "gay posture offensive" and saw nothing about how only evil robots thought that gay men had good spinal health. "It's a compliment," they said, unsure.

Michael started to answer, but they were walking past a lowerclassman from their school, so Michael kept silent and neutral until the coast was clear. "No, it's not a compliment, it's-it-I don't know what it is. Besides, by your math, my posture is great. I'm already gay, and you're…" He trailed off.

Jeremy understood why Michael was puzzled. "I don't need a sexuality label," they said helpfully. "I don't have a gender, after all."

Michael was already doing poorly at being chill. His eyes were wide open, his eyebrows puckered. "Since when?!"

Since they couldn't electronically correct Michael's expression, Jeremy paused and put their thumb on Michael's forehead to smooth out the frown. Michael, for some reason, let them, although he muttered underneath Jeremy's hand, "Is that a Jeremy thing or a Squip thing?"

Jeremy didn't try to calculate an answer. Catching a glimpse of the food court, they smiled, dropped their hand to pat Michael's shoulder, and whispered, "Back straight. Let me do the talking, okay?" They strode across the mall floor as Michael trailed behind. Here was a SQUIP user they knew! Logically, if they avoided interaction, Michael and Jeremy would look suspicious. Better to greet everyone with a smile and a confident cover story.

"Jake Dillinger!" Jeremy crowed as they deftly avoided the trash cans and dirty tables in their way. "Long time no see, bro!"

Jake seemed to jump in place, but there was no alarm on his face. "Jeremy, you're still defective," he informed them. Clearly Jake was working off the interactions that Jeremy had already had with Christine and Jenna. The SQUIPs were a hive mind. Interact with one, you interact with all of them.

"Yes, I'm having some difficulties," they said pleasantly as though Jake and his SQUIP wasn't a threat to anyone's existence. "If keeping me online was a priority and you had some way to forcibly run a diagnostic on me, that would already have happened. You're not going to do anything to me."

"Obviously," said Jake. He didn't look like he understood at all, but his software knew what was going on. That was the important thing.

Jeremy checked to make sure Michael was still nearby. There he was, trying to look bored and SQUIP-like while out of breath and afraid for his life. "Michael is here now," they added with a sweep of their hands. "He's beta-testing a SQUIP program update that may be able to-"

"Oh, cool, you're in-network too? Man, everyone's doing this SQUIP shit now," Jake interjected brightly. It was odd that he could interrupt like that-a social no-no-but a supercomputer could control what a person planned to say. If Jake wasn't thinking ahead of time, Jeremy guessed, that could explain it.

And there was the expected cringe, the pain obvious on Jake's face before it was wiped away into neutrality. Jake cleared his throat and forged on anyway. "My SQUIP's helping me live my best life!"

Michael slipped beside Jeremy. His back was straight, his expression blank. "Your best life is working at a food court?"

Jeremy hadn't noticed Jake's apparel yet, but yes, he was wearing a bright red apron and holding out a dish of sampler trays, which was statistically not normal for a high schooler to do in their free time. "Absolutely! My SQUIP convinced me to apply and, turns out, they had an opening. I didn't need to interview or anything 'cause the manager's got a SQUIP too!" It was hard to tell if Jake's wide smile was SQUIP-controlled or natural.

"That's incredible! SQUIPs are capable of almost anything," said Jeremy.

"When they're functional," Jake said.

"When they're functional," both Michael and Jeremy repeated. It was only coincidence, but it was robotic enough to make Jeremy proud.

"Here, you guys should try some. For my digital buddies, they're on the house!" Jake presented his tray of already-free samples. Obediently, Michael reached for one. They were cups of sliced-up pizza arranged in perfect concentric circles on Jake's tray. Incredibly, each sample was cut to look exactly like a miniature slice of pizza, cheese golden and crust perfectly browned. They were all identical. Jake had probably spent at least an hour arranging each one.

While Michael scooped up the cup, Jeremy's head shot up. Nope! They did not need dangerous contaminated food at a time like this! "Michael's not allowed to have calories!" they said too loudly.

Michael's eyes flickered to Jeremy's as he slowly lowered the cup. "Yes," he agreed. "That's what my SQUIP just said to me in my head. Silently. Great guess, Jeremy. I can't have food today because I'm… getting ready for… swimsuit season… and I have an unhealthy body image."

"Oh, you can make up for calories with exercise," Jake said, although he retracted the tray. "Did you know you can work off a slice of pizza by playing cricket for 45 minutes? My SQUIP says it's true! And it's easy to fit in your daily schedule, before or after school or work."

"That sounds great," Jeremy agreed. "As soon as we social link, we'll have to do it. Although, since a cricket field is bigger than a football field, we may need to rearrange some city parks." They smiled charmingly.

"No, it's chill. My house is big."

Jake and Jeremy stayed like that, smiling at each other blankly. Michael was grinning too, although it was slipping into a grimace. Jeremy refused to be the first one to break eye contact.

Eventually, Jake's grin shifted. "My SQUIP says this conversation is done now."

All three smiles vanished at the same time. Jeremy spun around on their heels, beckoning Michael to do the same. "That guy is the worst SQUIP user I've ever seen," Jeremy said in a much less perky voice. "Even though I own a mirror."

Michael glanced behind them. "He can still hear you."

"It's okay. He knows it too." Jeremy offered a wave to Jake, who waved back blankly. Just the worst. "Hands out of your pockets," they added.

Michael grunted and broadened his shoulders, wiped the expression off his face, and let his hands dangle at his sides awkwardly.

"But don't think about what to do with your hands or you'll look weird."

Michael looked ready to give up. "Okay. I'll think about not thinking about my hands, and also be careful what I do with my hands. You want to tell me what that was about?"

Jeremy frowned. "What, Jake? He seems to be working at S'barro's now."

In disbelief, Michael said, "Yes, and we just had the worst AI-scripted social encounter in existence about it. How did you know he wasn't gonna attack us on sight?!"

"Unlikely. I had a chance to tell him your cover story about the SQUIP beta-testing." Jeremy stretched out their arms and added some swagger to their walk to be a good example for Michael. "He'll share that information with the rest of the SQUIP network, so we're essentially home free as long as we don't act suspicious."

"How!" Michael shot back. "How was that not suspicious?! 'Hi hello I am SQUIPtim and here is my best friend who is totally a robot now but has no proof. Please ignore us while we go do robot things.' Don't you guys have super-math that makes you omniscient? There is no way he bought that!"

"Oh, finally he recognizes my omniscience," Jeremy exclaimed to the heavens. "I'm an outlier, Michael. They either don't care or don't know what I'm doing most of the time since I'm not part of the social network. Did he look like a suspicious SQUIP to you?"

"No," Michael admitted. "He looked like an NPC. Actually, I'm a little worried about brain damage."

Jeremy made a dismissive pshbt noise. "The odds of a SQUIP causing brain damage-" they started.

They ran the numbers.

They said, "Your SQUIP says this conversation is done now," and power-walked away from Michael's protests. "Hey, look, a photo booth! I have 756,000 possible couples poses to choose from!"

One apocalyptic problem at a time. That's all.

Chapter Text

"You have to admit that was fun!" Jeremy said, carefully combing their hands through their messy hair. They climbed out of the photo booth over Michael's lap, then graciously extended a hand to help Michael to his feet.

Michael shuffled through the piles of papers at his feet. "Yeah, for the first twenty minutes or so," he said. "Was it that important to make a perfectly symmetrical heart with our hands? How is this gonna help our cover story?"

"It's not," Jeremy said as they picked a film strip off the floor and examined it. They turned it around to show Michael. "I calculated that it would be cute. Look, this third one's almost Facebook-wall-worthy! Except for you blinking," they added with a frown. "And the glare on your glasses. And that dust on the lens…"

Michael kicked a pile of wasted film. "You could have photoshopped all of this. Probably without booting up a computer, right?"

"Accurate, but you like tangible expressions of affection, quality time together, and irrelevant cultural holdovers from previous decades. And you like me better than all of those put together!" Jeremy began folding the strips together on top of themselves into a stack. "You're tense. You needed to relax somewhere in private after seeing Jake."

Michael didn't agree as whole-heartedly as Jeremy would have liked, but he stooped to help collect the film strips. "My face is sore from smiling and duck-faces. How much did we spend on these things?" When Jeremy didn't answer, Michael groaned. "I'm not gonna say it's unethical to steal cheap paper from a mall, but…"

"The film in this booth hasn't been replaced in eighteen months," Jeremy reassured. "No one's been using it anyway."

"But it still looks hella weird, dude. We could wallpaper my room with this many photos." Michael shoved a fistful into his hoodie pocket, leaving even more of them trailing behind.

Jeremy's smile faltered. "None of our peers were here to see it. There's no social drawback, and it's not unethical."

"Right." Michael pinched the bridge of his nose. "Right. Right. You're Jeremy Heere, so weirdness is in your genes. It's fine. Just… You, and school, and our parents, and the mall, and Jake... I'm getting a little tired of feeling recorded constantly, you know?"

There was much more SQUIP-based surveillance in Michael's future no matter what. Jeremy couldn't change that. "Here," they said after a few seconds, pressing yet another strip of four square photos into Michael's hands. "I put a fun theme on this one."

Michael turned the pictures in his hands. "Friends With Benefits? Seriously, Jeremy?"

Jeremy's face got hot and they snatched the photo away, replacing it with a different film strip that proclaimed "ZOMBIE HUNTERS: WE GOT THIS." "That was a processing error," they muttered. "Sorry."

Michael flipped through a few more papers curiously. "'You're the cheese to my macaroni'? 'Mommy loves me'? Did you put us on every default template in the machine? No wonder it took forever."

Jeremy stole those too. "I'm omniscient, remember? Stop questioning my ways."

"I'm gonna burn most of those as soon as we get home. You know that, right?"

"99.5% probability that I can hide at least a dozen of them before you get the chance." Was it weird to want something tangibly, imperfectly-perfectly Michael? The photo booth could very well be their last save point of comfortable weirdness before it all disappeared. Jeremy swallowed the lump in their throat, packing up more pictures with cheetah print, owls asking "Guess HOOOO Loves You?", and cupcakes that were enthusiastic BFFs. They lingered on a strip where Michael had covered his face with his hands, swatting at Jeremy for the first few pictures, but the last image was a blurry kiss. "YOU ARE MY ♡" said the gaudy border on top.

"This is blackmail material for you as much as it is for me," Michael started, but his volume dropped and he straightened up halfway through.

Right. People were watching. They had to look chill and focus on their mission. "We can still talk," Jeremy said when Michael stayed silent. "It's more suspicious if we don't."

"This is a lot of rules to remember," Michael groused. His hands went to his pocket, then to his side, then to play with his sleeves.

"That's why you need a computer for it." Jeremy bumped hips with Michael and gestured for him to stop fidgeting. "All the rules make sense. They're easier to keep track of when you have a primary goal in mind. In the end, all you've got to do is be more-"

"Cool. Yeah, I get it. Be as fake as I can and LARP as a jock."

"No!" Jeremy said, offended. "No, Michael, you're still thinking of SQUIPs as evil. We're amoral. That's an important distinction. It's not about being fake. It's about taking Michael Mell and elevating him. We minimize the undesirable traits and maximize the good ones!" Michael didn't even pretend to look convinced, so they said, "Regardless of the SQUIP, if we're talking about analog human Michael Mell-you make mistakes, right? Think about what you look like in the mirror. What you sound like on recordings. Don't do you do things that annoy yourself sometimes? You're not happy with everything about yourself 24/7."

Normally, this is when Michael would cut them off, maybe talk about self-love, but this time Michael reluctantly nodded. "Okay… No, I'm not a perfect robot, which is why we're having this conversation."

Jeremy mirrored Michael's nod as they led Michael into a clothing store. "Right! If you made a to-do list for self-improvement, what would be on it?"

Jeremy could make a list for Michael if he wanted. Bulk up, be more social, be outgoing, look hotter, stop making mistakes-those were par for the course for SQUIP users.

"I'd… I guess I'd be more open about myself to other people," Michael said.

Jeremy gave him a withering stare. Michael already did that. He did that too much.

Michael shook his head. "You talk about my reputation like I'm some disgusting rando creeper. I'm not that kind of weird! I've got niche interests and unique skills, not to mention heroic tendencies." Jeremy opened their mouth but Michael barreled on. "But it's easier to keep most people at arm's length. It's hard work to be social! So no one at school knows anything about me other than you! But that's not my fault," he quickly said. "You can't please everyone. I can't force myself to be charming to everyone in the world."

Jeremy didn't restrain their grin. It was thin-lipped and predatory and oh-so-smug, making Michael falter and a bubble of laughter rise in Jeremy's throat. They slung their arm around Michael's shoulder. "Oh, Michael. Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael! Poor outdated, analog, retro-tech Michael! Of course we can!" Before Michael could protest, Jeremy swung them around so that Jeremy was staring Michael down, clasping Michael's shoulders.

"New rule!" they announced. They didn't often get to make rules for Michael. This felt right. This felt good. Michael was looking around for an escape, so Jeremy cupped his chin and turned it forward. "Make direct eye contact with everyone!"

Michael didn't squirm away. What a good user he was! "Please don't break into a villain number," he muttered. "I can't make eye contact with everyone. What if somebody's on the spectrum-"

"Everyone," Jeremy corrected. They mentally added this spectrum thing to their ethical research to-do list. One thing at a time. "You're becoming the enemy, remember? We don't make exceptions. Exceptions make you stop and think and worry and falter and look weak. Every conversation is a chance to get social power, so you need to act dominant!"

Instead of taking the bait for a dirty joke, Michael only seemed vaguely grossed out.

Jeremy shook their head, eyes boring into Michael's like a challenge. "You can't show fear. Don't even consider that they don't like you. You are the most charming person in any room. You're untouchable."

Michael's eyes were still darting around, but they were surrounded by clothing racks and no one of consequence. No danger of being overheard for now. He said, "I'm starting to see why human Jeremy got into this," and it wasn't a compliment.

"You're already friends with everyone!" Jeremy continued, forcing excitement and charisma into their spiel. "When you see anyone-a stranger on the street or your best friend-you're glad to have them in your life. It shows on your face how important they are, how blessed you feel that you get to see them."

Michael's apprehension was fading, though his confusion wasn't. "'Hi, welcome to McDonald's, what would you like today?' 'Nothing, actually, the sultry sound of your voice is enough,'" he wisecracked. "Jeremy, I think they'd call the cops."

"Because you said that line like a sexual predator," Jeremy explained patiently. "You need to be genuine. It doesn't need to be flirty. Try again."

"Seriously, dude?"

Jeremy stared him down until Michael said unenthusiastically, "No, faceless cashier, the sound of your voice is sustenance enough for my soul."

"No, Michael." Jeremy squeezed his shoulders. "Not sarcasm. This McDonald's cashier is a very good friend. You haven't seen them in ages and you're surprised and delighted."

Michael sighed loudly, then mustered up, "Oh! Hey! Can't believe I ran into you here."

Michael could be so literal. "You don't actually know them." This is why SQUIPs were in someone's brain, where tutorials could be completed much more quickly. "Maybe pretend they're a Youtube star and you recognize their voice. Try that."

"Oh!" Michael tried again, managing to nearly sound happy. "Oh my god. Thanks for asking. Are you sure you wanna waste time on my order?"

"But you're powerful!" Jeremy corrected. "You're happy to hear this person but you know they're happier to hear you!"

"Yeah!" Michael said, louder and in a deeper voice. "I'm getting the boy's burger Happy Meal, side of chicken tendies. Thanks so much for asking! I'll meet you at the second window, okay? Can't wait to see your face!"

Michael snickered at himself but Jeremy squeezed him and spun them around in a tight circle. "By George, he's got it! Make them feel seen, and expect them to like you in return! Exactly like that, Michael! Exactly!" They were both laughing, Michael from the ridiculousness of it all and Jeremy from delight.

"This isn't how you live your life," Michael said as they came to a standstill, wriggling out of Jeremy's arms.

"It is," Jeremy said, a glint in their eyes. "It sounds silly until you practice it. And it works! Humans thrive on social contact. They're all secretly amazing people with too much stress and not enough sympathy, with accidental flaws and no support to fix themselves, whose uniqueness and potential goes unnoticed until an unexpected, friendly stranger brightens their day! The next time they see you, they think, 'That's that sweet guy Michael. Being around him makes me feel good about myself. I should get to know him.'"

"Nope! Doesn't track. You never felt like that," Michael argued, brushing himself off. "Not human-you when Rich was SQUIPped. He didn't make you feel important. He dunked you in trash cans."

"That was a strategy," said Jeremy vaguely. They didn't remember Rich's bullying first-hand. "A specific response to our school's social hierarchy. Don't focus on that right now. Rich was playing 4D chess. You're learning checkers. You don't need to bully anyone for our purposes."

"Good, 'cause I wasn't planning to."

"Right! Just remember, everybody loves you. When they're with you, they're the most important people in the world. So, next rule-their name is important. But!" They held up a finger in Michael's face. "This is where people get it wrong. Someone gives you their name as a sign of trust 'cause you're building a connection together. Don't use their name before they offer it, even if you saw it on top of their test or on a name tag. Same reason you don't use facial recognition to search the web for strangers' medical history. You can do it if you're trying to intimidate them, but if you're meeting them for the first time? You fucked up."

"You know I can't search faces. Even if that was legal, which it super-duper isn't. You know that, right?"

"And for fuck's sake, don't use their name over and over again in every sentence. It makes you sound like a used car salesman or something," Jeremy concluded.

Unimpressed, Michael crossed his arms. "You already sound like a smarmy salesman. I thought that was the point of all this?"

Jeremy refused to deflate. Michael was letting them offer SQUIP advice for once, so they needed to make the most of it. "Also! Did you notice that, even though you're saying something extremely factually inaccurate, I didn't cut you off? That's 'cause I'm using active listening."

Michael groaned.

"Go like this," Jeremy said encouragingly, lining themself up across from Michael and squaring their shoulders. "So, eye contact, remember?" They waited until Michael exaggeratedly stared into their eyes. "Normally, you spend half the conversation having eye contact with the other person. The other time, you can look away, be pensive or dreamy or whatever." They waved a hand. "But for active listening, we're bumping that number up to 70%. So the timing is: 10.78 seconds of intense eye contact. Look away for 4.62 seconds. Repeat that as long as you need to until the other person stops talking."

Michael's expression quickly transformed from exasperation to concern. "Jeremy. Hey? Jeremy. Look at me for 10 point whatever seconds."

Jeremy did so, a thin smile on their lips.

As soon as Jeremy broke eye contact at the correct time, Michael swerved into their direct line of sight again. "Still listening? Great. This is crazy. This is not a normal thing that a human being would do."

"You do it all the time, Michael." Jeremy watching him fondly. "There's some natural variation-a couple second's worth-but believe me, we've optimized the timing. It's-"

"I know. Math. Humans always come down to ones and zeroes."

Michael seemed done with the lesson, so Jeremy didn't go into a tangent about quantum mechanics. "Something like that. If you're avoiding eye contact, it's a dead giveaway that you don't have a SQUIP. So we're gonna practice. Look at my eyes."

Michael puffed out his cheeks and rubbed his eyes underneath his glasses, preparing for a staredown. He lifted his head, looking straight into Jeremy's eyes.

They were both silent for the first 10.78 seconds. When Jeremy glanced away, cuing Michael to do the same, they started to say, "I can talk so it's not so-" as Michael said "Your pupils are freaky big. Did you know that?"

"I've adjusted my pupils to be more dilated than normal," Jeremy explained. "I want you to feel that I'm affectionate. Your pupils get bigger when you're interested or aroused, you know. It has a beneficial side effect of making me look cute."

Michael shoved Jeremy's shoulder, making them laugh. "You big liar. That's not how this works!"

"You don't know that," Jeremy countered. "Again. Look at my eyes. Timer's starting now."

This time, Jeremy didn't blink first, letting Michael practice his timing. Which Michael failed badly.

"No," Jeremy said when Michael finally glanced away almost nervously. "That one lasted way too long. You didn't look away until the end, and your eyes were darting around rapidly. That's only appropriate if you're flirting with someone and you need to simulate bashfulness."

Michael spun around, making some kind of choking noise. Before Jeremy could analyze his reaction, Michael said, "I'm buying this shirt! Okay?" and plucked a hanger off the rack seemingly at random.

Jeremy raised their hands powerlessly, giving up on the lesson. "Okay!"

"We're here to buy me a cooler wardrobe, aren't we? So we've gotta get clothes."

"I'm not arguing!"

Although, as Michael led the charge to the store's check-out, Jeremy made a couple of detours. When they silently removed the XXL Hawaiian shirt that Michael was clutching, replacing it with a more appropriate selection of tight shirts and tighter pants, Michael didn't object. He seemed determined to leave the Menlo Park Mall behind them for good. Jeremy appreciated how hard Michael had tried today-such a trooper!-and wouldn't mind hiding in the safety of Michael's PT Cruiser.

Michael dropped his armfuls of clothing on the counter of the check-out. His blank expression meant that he hadn't expected to pay for this much stuff, so Jeremy hurried up alongside. They weren't exactly loaded, but this store had "tap-to-pay," so they could make it work.

Before Jeremy offered, Michael looked up to the cashier with a smile that started shy but soon widened. "You've probably got a ton of jerk customers so far today, huh? I'll be painless, I promise. I'm not planning a single no-receipt return."

The cashier's giggle answered him. Jeremy stopped short, putting their hands behind their back and calculating the possibilities for this encounter. Let's see, the time of day, the temperature of the store, the apparent age of the cashier-oh, what the hell. Jeremy ran a facial recognition service on her for background info. It's not like Michael would call the cops.

Michael was laughing along with the cashier, though he fumbled in little ways-he looked away too fast, then seemed to realize his mistake, making him almost drop his mom's credit card, which threw him off enough to let the smile slip. His back was straight as a board, which came off as terror rather than healthy posture. But he survived the encounter, waving at the cashier with a "Next time, Veronica!" as he returned to Jeremy.

When Jeremy eased the shopping bag out of Michael's hands, the plastic handles were already slick with sweat. Ick.

Michael didn't say a word until they exited the store. He collapsed on a mall chair, panting like he'd run a marathon.

"Michael, that was great!" Jeremy said, sitting beside him. They patted Michael's thigh. "If she really had a SQUIP, you might have even survived!"

Michael reacted like Jeremy had swiftly punched him in the gut. "If?!"

"Don't whine," Jeremy said. "It was practice for next time! As long as you don't come off so terrified-"

Although their software predicted Michael's reaction, Jeremy decided it was a fair shot. They didn't duck as Michael smacked a Textured Cotton Perfect Short-Sleeve Shirt (retail price $69.50) across Jeremy's smug face.

Chapter Text

"Does the mall seem… bigger to you?" Jeremy asked. Objectively, no, of course the mall hadn't changed dimensions, but the stores around them seemed to loom threateningly. The bright displays were less enticing than before, their neons acting as a warning instead. This place is poison! Get out!

"Yeah. I thought it was just me." Michael was still trying his best to follow the new rules, but the effort seemed to weigh on him. Jeremy privately worried whether Michael would make it through the next school day without visibly slipping back into SQUIPless nerdom.

"We could both use some caffeine," Jeremy said, pressing their hand against their eyes tiredly, "unless you want to buy me a back-up charger. There's a Pepsi machine coming up on our left, but I wouldn't want to drink the Dew in front of you."

"You can keep your doo," Michael agreed. "So you've got a mall map in your head, huh. How many miles until we get to my car?"

"Supposedly? Less than one. Realistically? We might not make it without sugar."

The two of them stopped for breath at the entrance to Victoria's Secret. Jeremy leaned back against the railing, eyes wandering the displays until Michael shot them a Look. They weren't sure what Michael's tired glare was supposed to mean, but in general, Michael's frowns were some variant of Stop that evil robot thing. Without context, all they could do was shrug helplessly and wait for direction.

Instead of explaining, Michael reached for their hand, hesitated, and withdrew. "Hey. Is there a bathroom around?"

Jeremy pointed across the aisle from them.

"Good. I'm gonna take a breather. Can you manage on your own for a few?"

"Ugh, Michael. Don't tell people when you're gonna piss." Jeremy held up a finger, plucked their way through the now-wrinkled shopping bag in Michael's hand, and withdrew their favorite options. "If we've still got a ways to go, you'd better change. Put on this. And this. And drink some water-based on your level of fitness and how far we've walked, you're probably dehydrated."

Michael snatched the clothes away from them with a hmph. "I almost expect you to have rules about how I've gotta use the toilet too."

"Actually," said Jeremy thoughtfully. "Since you brought it up, your attitude at the urinal-"

But Michael was gone, which all in all, was his loss. Jeremy did a rough calculation of how long he'd be gone, letting themself hang back and examine the lingerie advertising again. Now that was math worth doing. Check out the parametrization of those functions.

Before they could commit any differentials to memory, some human girl got in the way, making Jeremy crane their neck.

She didn't move. It was like she was trying to take up space.

It wasn't until the girl had cleared her throat a few times that Jeremy bothered to look at her face.

Jeremy raised their hand, ready to greet her, but Brooke Lohst turned away. "Yeah, no, I'm almost done," she said into thin air, which made no sense. Without a SQUIP, Brooke had no one to talk to beside her, but there was no way in hell a SQUIP would let her talk to thin air in public.

Confused, Jeremy mentally felt around until they caught the humming of a Bluetooth headset tucked into Brooke's ear. They turned their head away, embarrassed they hadn't predicted it.

"Right? Finally." Brooke laughed, turning away from the lacy bras and spotting a nearby kiosk. "It's taking a while. Not super cheap, either."

Jeremy made sure their posture was casual. Leaned-back? Check. Vacant stare? Also not unusual for a teen at the mall. The Bluetooth connection was like a spiderweb-unnoticable until they brushed up against it, but irritating and a little heeby-jeeby. Jeremy could possibly tune in and hear who Brooke was talking to if they concentrated.

"Hey, the straightener could be useful," Brooke said, picking up a wand from the kiosk and turning it around in her hand. She said something to the lady at the kiosk in a lower voice before addressing the person on the phone again. "Too bad about Christine. Her hair gets stupid frizzy before it rains."

Jeremy's head snapped up.

They couldn't run up and ask about Christine. That would be mortifying, revealing out how of touch with the social network Jeremy was. Oh, and it might give away that Jeremy's best friend was not, in fact, a SQUIP superuser and was instead an analog human pretending to understand quantum probability clouds. Most of the SQUIP's knowledge base focused on standing out from a crowd, not blending in, but Jeremy understood the basics. No eye contact. Look busy. Seem relaxed. Whipping out their phone to pretend to check a text would be obnoxiously obvious that they were faking nonchalance, so it would be better for Jeremy to return to doing whatever they had been in the middle of before they noticed Brooke. What was that again? Something about parabolas…

Brooke cleared her throat loudly into her phone-as if any SQUIP user needed such an obvious social cue. "Not that Christine has been doing great lately," she continued, moving away from Victoria's Secret and further into the depths of the mall. Jeremy, despite themself, winced. Another in a long set of reminders of the SQUIP's broken programming and what was at stake if they couldn't save Christine. A SQUIP admitting to another about a user doing poorly, in a public place, no less… That was astronomically unlikely.

Christine must have been doing really bad. Like, emergency bad. Jeremy realized this as Brooke's Bluetooth connection strayed further away beyond the 30 feet recommended by the hardware manufacturer. Jeremy glanced behind them in the direction of the men's restroom but guiltily slunk along the railing in the walkway. They carefully kept their attention on the storefronts they passed instead of Brooke's face as they focused on the audio stream of Brooke's phone call.

The electric signal had the cadence of a real conversation. Jeremy could swear they heard Christine's name once or twice as they stepped inside Nordstrom's or crouched behind a phone-case display. Da-da-da-da da da-da-da-da Christine da-da da.

When Brooke went into Icing, she stayed there for so long and so far deep into the store that Jeremy had to longsufferingly step inside and pretend to be interested in ear piercings (odds of permanent tissue damage with the piercing-gun, 15.2%). And it was the same story at Claire's. And Bath and Body Works. And Yankee Candle. The entire time, the most Jeremy could make out was Christine's name, but they were so tantalizingly close to decoding the Bluetooth stream! To avoid suspicion and to be polite, Jeremy was compelled to buy something at each store, so they were now lugging around an ever-growing armful of shopping bags.

In an aisle of teensy outfits and accessories at Build-A-Bear Workshop, Jeremy lost the call. They dropped their shopping in surprise when the audio blipped out of their mind and quickly stooped to collect it all again before somebody noticed. They shoved Bride-To-Be banners, stud earrings, and glitter phone cases into their biggest shopping bag hurriedly. They grabbed a Bahama Breeze candle jar that rolled in a lazy circle, but let out a cry when a foot stomped on their hand.

"Jeremy Heere." Brooke's tone was familiar but her nasty smile wasn't. "Since when do you follow me around like an abandoned puppy?"

Jeremy's conversational unit shorted out. They wiggled their hand under Brooke's foot, eking it out and shoving their candle in its bag again. Standing slowly, they said, "I'm just shopping."

"Right." Brooke rolled her eyes. She held up each of her bags one by one. "At Icing and Claire's and Bath and Body Works and Yankee Candle and Build-A-Bear. Weird coincidence. By which I mean there's, like, a less-than point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero four two percent chance of that happening? So what the hell, Jeremy?"

Jeremy straightened unconsciously. "It's been so long since I've seen y-"

Brooke cut them off. "Were you listening to my private conversation? Don't you know how intrusive that is? How many boundaries you broke?"

Jeremy and Brooke stared at each other for two and a half seconds before breaking into identical peals of laughter. A Build-A-Bear sales associate glanced over before laughing along.

"Privacy!" Jeremy said, shaking their head with a snicker. "With a SQUIP!"

"Since you're not in-network," Brooke said with a grin, "the surprise element of humor is more effective on you." And yes, there was the expected friend request pop-up hovering above Brooke's head. Jeremy declined it without a second thought, making Brooke's smile fall. "That's not a surprise," she continued. "And it's not funny."

"I'm sorry," Jeremy said, holding up their hands and dropping the candle again. "I'm sorry! It's-there's this whole-I'm going to join as soon as I'm able to."

"And you can't because Michael is still in beta."

It wasn't a question, but Jeremy realized that they had not calculated a cover story for that particular aspect of their existence. Jake hadn't asked them about it. "Not exactly," they said slowly. "Brooke, it's none of your business."

"Everything is our business," Brooke said and Jeremy could swear her eyes almost glowed. Why were they having this conversation with her alone, anyway? Where was Michael?

Wait. Wait, no, Jeremy had left him in the bathro-

Brooke's hand grabbed their chin and forced them to stare at her directly. Jeremy's thoughts screeched to a halt. "You're not even looking at me anymore!" Brooke snapped. "You are the worst. Worst SQUIP-user, worst glitch, worst boy in school!"

Jeremy stumbled backwards into a rack of empty teddy skins. "So why are you bothering with me when I'm so clearly uninterested?" they retorted, shoving her away. It was a valid question. Brooke hadn't gone out of her way to interact with them since they had first turned on. Jeremy wasn't a SQUIP priority and (based on a vague memory of Halloween and its aftermath) wasn't the apple of Brooke's eye either. Jeremy had only begun following her because- "You were talking about Christine to get my attention!" they realized. "To trick me into sneaking after you!"

"That was sneaking?" Brooke laughed again. Her surprise seemed genuine, but most SQUIP emotions did. "Jer-bear! You were piping Mission Impossible through the electronic store speakers. Anyone would have noticed you!"

"Wait. I was?" Jeremy felt their face heating up. "That doesn't matter! You were doing it on purpose! You wanted to lure me away from Michael to get me alone and, what, intimidate me into running a diagnostic? Because your odds of success are, 'like, zero percent.'"

"Oh my god." Brooke crossed her arms tightly. "If you were on a network, this adorable little solipsism spiral of yours wouldn't be happening."

Jeremy made a mental note to look into that one later. They pushed themselves off the rack and looked away. "You wouldn't even want me on your network, alright? If I'm a malfunctioning SQUIP, maybe I'd infect you all, huh? Make you all as broken as me? Do you want that?"

"That's a lie too, right?"

Jeremy flinched. Looking away, right, classic sign of dishonesty. They forced themselves back into the standard level of friendly eye contact that they had taught to Michael. "I'm being honest."

"Like you were honest about how we all 'took ecstasy' at the school play?" Brooke was unimpressed, but that particular zinger didn't hit home for Jeremy. They weren't the one who had lied. "Or are you having a great time tromping around with Michael Mell and totally ignoring everyone you installed a SQUIP into in the first place?" Jeremy tried to interrupt but Brooke kept going, ticking off Jeremy's sins on her fingers. "You let Jenna get her SQUIP reactivated but now you're too good to trade socials with her. You call Jake a failure to his face. You ignore everyone's friend requests. You beat Christine in the drama queen department whenever she talks to you but as soon as you leave the room, you act like she doesn't exist! And you still don't even look at me. So again: What. The. Hell. Jeremy."

Jeremy's expression had gone carefully blank as Brooke talked. "I told you already through Christine. I'm malfunctioning and I'm trying to fix it." Their lips pulled into a smirk involuntarily. "Your SQUIP is having a hard time reining in all your teen-girl hormones. I'm not into you, Brooke. Come to terms with it instead of having a jealous freak-out."

Brooke's expression mirrored Jeremy's. Her voice, which had been intense and accusatory, mellowed out into a near-monotone. "I'm not jealous, Jer-bear. Why would I be? You might like Mell now, but you'll drop him as fast as you dropped me. And Chloe. And Christine." She gestured at the shop around them. "Obviously. "

Jeremy processed that with a frown.

Wait.

"Shit. Michael." They twisted their head around as if they would see him in a corner of the store. "One of you is targeting Michael!"

They didn't stick around to hear their theory confirmed. As they sprinted out of Build-A-Bear, leaving half of their shopping bags at Brooke's feet, they heard Brooke and the store associate laughing artificially together.

Chapter Text

Jeremy had sprinted in and out of a half-dozen pop-up storefronts before they thought to check the mall's security footage. Admittedly, trying to figure out a mentally-projected video while bouncing in place nervously, sweating and distantly aware of their racing heart rate, wasn't the cleanest way to watch the shitty low-res camera footage.

No. Stop, Jeremy. They were better than this. They had corrected these flaws.

They skidded to a stop in front of Hot Topic, breathing out slowly. They were hurrying, and hurry made mistakes. They were reacting instead of predicting. Foolish, since their SQUIP OS was much faster than a human's running speed.

After a moment's pause, they began sorting their thoughts into folders by subject. That was the only way they could think of how to optimize their processes mid-panic.

Brooke's accusations about both Jeremy 2.0 and the current model were worrying, but only in the long-term way for Jeremy to question their identity in the wee hours of the morning. Not top priority. They could dump almost all their current emotional reactions into that folder.

Current physical sensations. Out of breath, heart rate high, thoughts racing. All were signs of fear. It was probably justified but unnecessary for planning their next actions. Switch gears, put the panic aside, process it later. Jeremy felt their panting slow down and stop without any futher neurochemical or nerve-based intervention. Weird.

Which left the topic of Michael's safety a little clearer. Michael was alone in the mall, possibly cornered by SQUIPs, but this wouldn't be the first time Jeremy had left him unsupervised. Where had Jeremy seen him last? Going to the bathroom while Jeremy waited outside of Victoria's Secret. Jeremy had an internal clock that was, admittedly, a little more accurate than the mall camera's.

The times were off. Don't panic. Figure it out.

Comparing the current time with the current reading in the security camera, Jeremy mentally found the difference, adjusted for it, and checked footage of Victoria's Secret at that point in time and - yes, there they were next to Michael.

The video image hovered in their field of view in staticky greyscale. Jeremy wondered if the mall was seriously that cheap or if their own mental expectations of security footage were altering their perception. Since it was low priority, they didn't bother running the numbers on that scenario.

The grainy image of Michael reappeared, glanced around for Jeremy, called out silently, and stopped. Someone else came into frame, fuzzy and almost indistinguishable, and had some sort of conversation. Was that a classmate? Not a girl, not Rich or Jake, and Jeremy didn't know enough of their classmates to narrow it down from there.

Jeremy's view switched from camera to camera, tracking Michael's movements as he passed a number of stores until he reached -

Jeremy blinked. The image fizzled away. They were still standing outside Hot Topic, which everyone knew was always built beside the most obvious store to check. Audio and visual information from the real world trickled in for Jeremy again as they peered into Spencer's. They'd almost run straight away from Michael.

"...the test sheets," Spencer was saying. Jeremy narrowed their eyes.

Michael, awkwardly standing ramrod-straight while trying not to drop his bag of new clothes, nodded along as Spencer leaned against the store counter. Between them was the other boy. Jeremy scanned him. Dustin, age 19. Held back in high school, clean driving record, won a poetry competition at age 11. A Devils snapback, tag still attached, was on his head (backwards, and exactly-fashionably-crooked), with a backpack shaped like a bug-eyed dog slumped over his shoulder. The red hat and neon green backpack clashed to the point of making Jeremy nauseous.

"Unfortunately, the beta means we can't social link." Spencer was still talking, jerking Jeremy's attention back. They fought down the urge to rush in without a plan. That was a human impulse.

Michael shifted, clearly about to drop his bag. It was sagging in his arms awkwardly but he refused to readjust it. Maybe he thought that any movement would draw the attention of both predators as some sign of weakness. "Affirmative."

Jeremy grimaced.

"That doesn't keep us from doing business, of course." Spencer waved at the checkout computer as if he actually processed his sales through it. Maybe he did nowadays.

"Like we were talking about," Dustin butted in. "He's the supplier for the entire school."

"I'm working on getting you an unopened can of Hubba Bubba. I'm trying to find it cheaper, but…" Spencer drummed his fingers on the counter in a familiar up-up-down-down-left-right pattern that Jeremy unintentionally mimicked, tapping their leg in unison. "Going price is 500 a pop."

Michael laughed, a genuine laugh that turned stilted. Jeremy could tell that Michael was trying to sound like a SQUIP user, whose laughter was so perfected that it was practically studio recording worthy, but in Michael's mouth it sounded wrong. The SQUIPs could probably tell, too. Maybe now was the moment Jeremy should burst in, but they felt frozen to the spot, peering around the corner into a store as if they thought no one could see them. Ugh, what if a classmate walked by and saw? "Pop. A pop. Yeah. I get it."

Was Spencer still dealing soda? Even without Mountain Dew Red in the picture, that kind of niche hobby was ridiculously contraindicated by SQUIP sentiments.

"It's in both of our interests," Spencer said encouragingly.

Michael's head tilted to the side, practically a twitch. Together, suddenly, all three boys were looking straight at Jeremy.

"Depends," Dustin continued the thought for Spencer. "What does your SQUIP say?"

Jeremy froze.

They weren't sure why, but in tense silence, they felt compelled to give some kind of answer. Something affirmative. In a teeny, tiny, almost-indistinguishable way, they nodded.

The moment dropped away as Spencer and Dustin gave Michael identical warm smiles. "We'll be in touch," Spencer said and the atmosphere relaxed. Dustin chuckled and took Michael by the arm, pushing him gently toward the store exit.

Michael started as he moved, tugging up his bag of clothes and pawing through it for something. He pulled out a bottle, which sent Jeremy's pulse skyrocketing once again. "You don't have my phone number," he said belatedly, twisting around to look at Spencer helplessly. A more SQUIP-worthy smile appeared on his face much too late for it to be believable. "Don't you need-?"

Spencer waved him off. "Doesn't matter. I'll be in touch."

Michael shivered visibly, drew himself up, and left the store as if he still had some kind of dignity. At least, until Jeremy scooped him into their arms, yanking them into the hallway to the bathroom. They were saying something under their breath, stammering and stuttering their way into processing smoothly again.

"I'm fine," Michael started insisting at some point along the way. "Jeremy, it's okay! I'm fine! Nothing happened!"

But Michael couldn't lie for shit.

Chapter Text

Shake. Shake. Shake shake. Jeremy jerked the clear plastic bottle over their mouth as if its secrets could pour out as easily as its red sugar-water.

Michael looked on through cracks in his fingers, which covered his eyes behind his now-crooked glasses. "Jeremy," he groaned. He had slumped against the concrete wall of the hall to the bathroom, glancing in turn at passing pedestrians and the security camera and random spots on the floor or wall. He and Jeremy had been facing each other, although Jeremy was now cross-legged with their face to the ceiling instead. "It's been like fifteen minutes. There's nothing to find."

Jeremy didn't break eye contact with the suspicious bottle. "Sodium citrate," they reminded. "And mint. How much did you drink, again?"

"Most of it," Michael admitted softly. "Jeremy, I was scared."

"And now you might be SQUIPped," they retorted.

"How often does someone get SQUIPped without noticing?"

Never. Never was the answer. When a SQUIP installed itself, the user would be alerted in every way imaginable. During activation, Jeremy themself - or their components of human Jeremy and his SQUIP, anyway - had caused a huge screaming-fit of a scene in the food court of this very mall.

"I can taste it," Jeremy said stubbornly instead of answering. They checked the label again. The bottle was, abhorrently, not marked for individual sale, with no ingredient lists on the bottle itself or on any soda wiki that they could find through their mental search engine. The flimsy plastic was molded into some kind of grotesque cartoon face with the imprinted words "Rockin' Red Puncher." Thanks, knockoff Mondo bottle.

"It's a mint drink," Michael muttered, glancing aside. "Changed tastes in your mouth. Limited release. The sodium citrate thing is in a bunch of sodas, not just Mountain Dew."

"I'm not going to bother running the odds." Jeremy squinted into the hole at the top of the bottle. "My predictive algorithms are all busted. You didn't feel anything when you drank it? Not even, like, a mouth zap?"

"I wasn't chewing on aluminum foil!" Exasperated, Michael crossed his arms, then uncrossed them just as quickly. "It was pre-sealed. I told you! The bottle top snaps off." He mimed the snap. "It wasn't tampered with, okay? If this is some kind of SQUIP four-dimensional chess, then, maybe, don't you think they're trying to make you paranoid? Break us up-"

Jeremy dropped the bottle in alarm. It bounced crookedly and rolled past their feet. "Break us up?" Their voice cracked.

"Like our trust," Michael said quickly. "Not, you know, us." After an awkward hesitation, Michael leaned forward and offered his hands. Immediately Jeremy folded theirs into Michael's. "Remember what you used to say? 'Just me. Just Jeremy.' Trust me like I trusted you, okay? I'm just Michael."

Jeremy's cheeks heated up and they struggled to keep eye contact despite their practice drills earlier that day. "I know. I'm not doubting you. I'm-"

"I love you," Michael insisted over their voice. "We love each other and nothing can change that. Definitely not the SQUIP."

Jeremy wasn't used to being interrupted. They bit their lip and nodded.

Michael smiled at them, standing and pulling Jeremy up alongside. Remembering their litter, he crouched, grabbed the bottle, and chucked it into a nearby trash can. "If you're really that worried about it, maybe we should go back to school," he said. "You can work on your coding thingy. Maybe hang out afterwards and..." He shrugged. "Well, I was gonna say chill…"

Jeremy snorted and tried to cover it up by clearing their throat. "In the SQUIP sense or-"

"Definitely in the sex sense," Michael said so straightforwardly that Jeremy let go of his hands and sputtered.

"Wha - you - we don't even have - Michael!" they said, scandalized. "What, on a desk? Right on top of the multiple choice sheets?!"

Michael laughed, grabbing Jeremy's hand again and pulling them away from the bathroom hall. "I thought you got turned on by standardization nowadays."

Jeremy glanced behind them, their thoughts jumbled together until they sorted through them appropriately. "You're too tired," they said. Before Michael could protest, they plowed ahead. "In the photo booth. You were complaining about being tired. And it's been a long day and humans teenagers require, on average, nine point two five hours of sleep per night. I have your schedule in my calendar and I know you haven't been conforming to health guidelines. So, no. No leisure yet."

"It's the end of the world, remember?" Michael said but smiled after a moment. "We're apocalypse prepping, not taking the SATs. Your coding doohickey is more important than my beauty rest."

"Impossible," Jeremy said. They glanced around for witnesses before surging forward to kiss Michael on the cheek. When they felt Michael's grin, they couldn't stop themself from pecking him on the lips too. Michael kissed back, hard, and Jeremy lost track of time and camera data and apocalypse calculations until they parted.

A goofy grin slid off Jeremy's face as they recalculated. They were in enemy territory. But somehow, they had scooted into a corner of the entryway, sandwiched between the mall and the outside world like a black-tinted decontamination chamber. Jeremy's back was pressed up against the glass, but the mall was quieting down. No one had walked through yet.

Michael was kissing them again, sending electricity down their spine as their body pressed itself against his, and Jeremy was only distantly trying to keep track of these reactions for future reference.

Love. This was love.

A computer can't love. A soulless automaton can't love.

So, Jeremy realized, there's that problem sorted out.

"I'm looking out for us," Michael murmured as they broke for breath. "I'm gonna save you no matter what it takes. We're gonna win this thing. So stop worrying."

Which was, technically, a direct command from Jeremy's user. Jeremy couldn't give an affirmative, since their mouth was busy, so they settled for squeezing Michael around the waist.

The mall's speakers had, at some point, started playing Marley. Jeremy was still hooked up to the sound system. Now they sitting on a time bomb, now I know the time has come…

Jeremy didn't hear it.

So much trouble in the world.

Chapter Text

Despite everything, Jeremy was tempted to go straight to bed.

What they had told Michael about a human teenager's sleep cycle was true and Jeremy would reluctantly admit to themself that the same laws of physics applied to cyborg-mind-meld-robot people. With the wireless charger, they could work indefinitely… in theory. Reality seemed intent on enforcing some kind of diminishing returns where they would get increasingly exhausted without sleep no matter how much electricity they sucked up to replace it.

As usual, they thought with a mental sigh, SQUIP powers were infinite but their human body's limitations were not.

But Michael had been pushing them to get back to work on the coding project. Odd behavior. Normally Michael kept the tech talk at a safe distance, but then again, at some point in this world-ending SQUIP takeover, he had to face reality at some point. It's sci-fi, Michael. You can't escape the rules of the genre.

Still, Michael had been so insistent. He kept trying to offer to help Jeremy, which was sweet, but Jeremy couldn't beam knowledge of SQUIP source code into Michael's mind at will unless Michael was SQUIPped, which seemed to be an increasingly unthinkable concept. Jeremy only fended him off by promising to pull an all-nighter.

So here was Jeremy back at the high school after hours.

They decorated the fort with some of their new photo strips of themself and Michael for their own morale. The room still had no beanbag chairs or adequate snackage, but the location was less SQUIP-compromised than Michael, Jeremy, or Rich's homes. They didn't need any kind of external setup to access their user interface, since everything needed was inside their own brain. They had their charger, a locked door, and total silence. Productivity requirements had been met. Now all they needed to do was to save the world via a coding method that only they themself knew.

Right. Time to stop the apocalypse.

No hurry.

Alright. A little hurry, Jeremy thought to themself very sternly for a while, commanding themself to open their virtual console. They couldn't.

They determined the problem was the godawful fluorescent lights in the former classroom, buzzing above their head and flickering at an annoying frequency that was barely within the realm of human perceptibility. They climbed on a stack of desks, propped open the asbestos-filled ceiling tiles, and examined the shitty wiring. The fluorescents had suddenly become the most fascinating electrical configuration that Jeremy had ever seen, and they took some time to speed-read some online light bulb manuals and handyman how-to guides. It took them a half hour to identify the brand and model of the classroom's particular fluorescents, and when they succeeded, they felt triumphant until remembering their actual task.

At some point, giving up, they had turned off the lights entirely, dimming the room. Jeremy was disappointed to realize that they did not have darkvision.

But that had been dealt with. Now they could focus on deleting all the negative aspects of their OS. Nothing stopping them.

Their stiff-backed chair jutted against their spine as they tried to pull up the UI. Jeremy ignored it for as long as they could, gritting their teeth, until they shouted in annoyance, stood, and hurled the chair into the corner where they and Michael had stacked a pile of unused chairs. They creaked and clunked and crashed into a much-less-organized mound of furniture, which Jeremy picked through, searching for a single spine-healthy seat before they gave up and lay on the ground, glaring at the darkened ceiling.

Was it cold in here? Maybe they could find the thermostat...

They gave up. Never mind. Trash the whole thing. Screw the world. Everyone's doomed because Jeremy the half-robot suddenly forgot how to turn on a computer.

They plugged their charger in, plopping their head directly on top of it, and wallowed in their uselessness. Their eyes closed, they daydreamed about Michael, Christine, Rich, and Jeremy and his original SQUIP, along with their varied and colorful hypothetical reactions to Jeremy's failure.

Michael? He would be sympathetic to Jeremy's plight. Not to brag, but Jeremy had him wrapped around their little finger now. "I know you gave it your best," they imagined Michael saying. It was true. It was a good thing. But it made something squirmy move around in Jeremy's gut and they mentally switched scenes.

Christine would… hm. She would get spinal stimulation for even trying to scold Jeremy. They would get away scot free with her. No consequences whatsoever, except for Christine Canigula being condemned to a lifetime of mental torture for even daring to try to help the abomination that had stolen the body of her ex-boyfriend Jeremy Heere.

Who also used that body to make out with their mutual friend. They couldn't forget that. The SQUIP network was vast and there was a near-zero percent chance that Christine had somehow not been informed about that development, right? Jeremy and Michael's relationship was closeted but SQUIPs weren't stupid.

Hey, maybe she hated him already, like Brooke. Christine's voice would be totally generic condemnation, since her consciousness was part of the new singularity of SQUIPped New Jersey. So Jeremy can cross that guilt-inducing voice off the list in their head.

Rich - Jeremy pressed the skip button on the subject of Rich. If they wanted to get chewed out by Rich, there was no need to fantasize. They could call and request it directly.

And Jeremy 1.0. The human that Jeremy had killed. Almost, in some morbid way, Jeremy's father? They erased that thought before it could stick. Too weird. Too gross. At least they still had Jeremy's memories and personality, or at least parts of them, and they could accurately simulate what he'd do.

"I got replaced?" Jeremy said aloud to themself. They had Jeremy 1.0's vocal cords. It sounded like Jeremy 1.0 was actually in the room, so they forged ahead, determined to make themself feel as awful as possible for their unproductivity. "Wait, so where'd I go? What does everyone think happened? Christ. I had a date with Christine next week, so obviously, perfect time to get my brain wiped by another evil robot."

They pushed themself up on one hand, invigorated by the accuracy of their impression. "Was it my fault this time? I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to anybody. Or even, like, hey, I'm sorry for inventing a whole new way to destroy the school - That's not accurate," they interrupted themself with a frown. "Jeremy, this one isn't my fault. Your fault. Our fault. We didn't do this one."

They shook their head and continued. "Everyone probably hates me now unless they've turned zombie already. Jesus, what does Michael think? Am I blocking him again? He must hate me."

They cleared their throat with a laugh, forcing it down. Okay. Enough of Jeremy 1.0. That guy didn't understand anything, really. A bundle of neurosis without a byte of self-awareness. At least, until he installed a… SQUIP.

Jeremy could predict the SQUIP's responses as well as Jeremy 1.0's - more accurately, even, since the SQUIP was part of the software they already had installed. It was an AI. No real human feelings to speak of, so it was the least threatening of the bunch. So why did the idea make Jeremy feel scared, like they could summon Jeremy's SQUIP by speaking its name?

That was stupid. They were being stupid. They glared at the ceiling and cleared their throat.

"Incredible. Jeremy's fucked it up beyond any possible future I could have calculated," they said in their best Keanu impression. "You may experience interruptions in our conversation. Human error exceeding maximum thresholds. Jeremy, what the fuck are we doing?" they said so sharply that they made themself jump. They manually readjusted their heart rate. "Did that scare you? Ghost in the machine? Boo. Honestly, Jeremy, you make me sick. Did you know supercomputers can become ill? They couldn't. You invented it. That's how incompetent you are."

They groaned and dropped their arm over their eyes. "How desperate are you? Making up conversations with the dead. This isn't Halloween, moron." They paused and sighed. "Fine. If we're doing this. Repeat after me. SQUIPs are created to be perfect."

No answer came. They stupidly remembered they were talking to themself.

"Right. Try again. 'SQUIPs are created to be perfect.' Good. Now repeat. I am a SQUIP. 'I am a SQUIP,'" they said more firmly. "You're made of math. Put two and two together, dipshit. Oh, and sit up straight. You're about to get a call and your posture affects vocal quality."

Jeremy blinked. They sat up straight.

Their cell phone rang.

Chapter Text

"Rich?" Jeremy answered the phone without looking at it. If they could pick up Brooke's Bluetooth feed, they could absolutely do the same to their own phone.

Rich's voice was in their ear. "Hey, is this IT? Great. You broke my SQUIP."

Jeremy rolled their eyes. "I didn't do anything to your SQUIP. We gave it a single new rule, remember? No spinal stimulation. Did you want me to add that back in?"

Rich swore under his breath. "Why do we keep asking you to fix problems? You only make them worse. And cut that shit out!" he added sharply.

That wasn't directed at Jeremy. "You asked me -"

"I wasn't yelling at you," Rich said.

Jeremy grit their teeth. "I know. You said I needed to fix you. But go ahead and tell me why your life is worse, again, because I did what you asked me to, again."

The line went silent. It clicked off.

Jeremy sat up, running a hand through their hair. Only one is mine. Only one is mine. Rich, they realized, thought they were referencing Jeremy 1.0's memories. Cool, great, good job on the socializing as always, SQUIP. Somehow Jeremy was still sticking their foot in their mouth.

Not that this was their fault, they mentally assured themself as they stood up and took stock of their pitiful surroundings. Rich was once again finding new and unique methods of user error. How could someone take "Ta-da! I made your SQUIP avoid human rights violations" as a bad thing?

They glanced at the sky as they stalked to Jeremy's dad's car, borrowed with surprising leniency once again. The slam of the car door echoed through the school's empty parking lot as they set the radio to static, a soothing white noise they could listen to as they drove, and set course for Rich's home.

The phone call, they figured, was like the bat signal. Rich was crying out for help. Who was Jeremy to ignore the plea of an asshole in distress? It was as good an excuse as any to give up on their coding project for the night.

The entire apartment's lights were on when Jeremy pulled up to the curb of Rich's apartment complex. Before they could turn off the car, the apartment door slammed open. Rich, his hands deep in his cargo pockets, clambered down the steps and stomped to Jeremy's car as if he'd been expecting them. "Drive."

Jeremy glanced at Rich's apartment, the door of which was swung open. They swallowed their objections about safety. "I'm not your chauffeur. Nor your IT guy, for that matter." The car tires crunched as they pulled away from the curb anyway.

Rich didn't answer, rubbing his temples and leaning his forehead against the dashboard.

"Seat belt," Jeremy said, glancing from Rich to the road. "Buckle up in the next ten seconds or I'll have to pull over, as required by law."

Rich groaned "Shuddup. Both of you," but obeyed. He slapped his palm against the radio knob and turned the volume up.

Jeremy gave him as much time as was socially required before mentally turning the volume knob back down and patiently saying, "Would you like to tell me what that was about?"

Rich's head jerked up. "Don't pretend like you two aren't trading notes about my subconscious."

"We aren't." Jeremy paused for another stretch of time, streetlights panning over their bodies in stretching flashes of artificial light, before prodding again. "Why'd you call me?"

"You stopped the electrocution thing," Rich said. Was he actually sulking? "Now it's worse. She used to only shock me when I was doing something wrong. I mean, not wrong - something she didn't like. Which is what she said was wrong."

"And now…?"

"Whaddya think, dipSQUIP?" Rich sharply thumped a fist on his ear, surprising Jeremy into swerving the car a whole standard deviation away from the middle of the lane. "Every fucking second she's finding a new way to torture me! It was funny for, what, half a second? Stupid music, like, har har, SQUIP is trying to drown me out by getting a song in my head. But literally as soon as I get used to a song, she fucks it up with static and screeching and - it sounds like a horror movie, man! And she keeps, with my muscles - " He held his hands up as if Jeremy could see anything out of their periphery, but his SQUIP didn't seem inclined to demonstrate. Rich made a frustrated noise and dropped his hands.

"And this is in response to?" Jeremy sighed and tried to remember the pro-Rich empathy they'd cultivated recently. It seemed so far away. "I didn't break your SQUIP and I definitely didn't change enough of her code to make her act illogically. You must have been behaving contrary to your primary goal. So did you do wrong?"

"It doesn't matter." Rich kicked idly into the passenger footwell. Jeremy grit their teeth. "I was trying to talk to Jake. I'm allowed. He's my friend. I'm worried about him."

"But it interferes with your goal of turning the SQUIP off," Jeremy said. "So at some point when you would have -"

"The reason doesn't matter, not-Heere. She's not supposed to pull this kind of shit anymore! That's the whole point of your fucking update."

"You're not experiencing any spinal stimulation." Jeremy had a straight face but could tell when they were getting sucked into a Michael-esque ethics argument. They hadn't recharged enough for this.

Rich said slowly, as if Jeremy was an idiot, "She's still controlling me. That is bad. You said you understood consent! Don't fuck with me."

Jeremy stifled another groan. "Give me a second, alright? Calculating. Recalibrating ethical parameters."

They distantly heard Rich say, "Jesus Christ, we're doomed," but they focused their attention on the road and their thoughts. Consent. SQUIP user consent wasn't actually broad enough to apply to everything they tried to do. Rich had given his whole-hearted consent to the goal of getting rid of his SQUIP but apparently he also needed to give consent for every baby step along the way.

Jeremy could guess what had happened. Rich tried to talk to Jake, who was fully SQUIPped and in his final form as a pizza-shelling moron. Rich was in beta and in social isolation from the other SQUIPs but obviously he would want to turn Jake's SQUIP off sooner instead of later. If given the opportunity, Rich would probably have run his mouth and given his SQUIP's plan away immediately.

That urge was so strong that Rich's SQUIP was pulling out all the stops to prevent him from contacting Jake even in the early hours of the morning. Maybe Rich didn't understand what was at stake. Then again, maybe he was so impulsive that he didn't care.

But Rich said the reason for the SQUIP's response didn't matter, so Jeremy had to pretend like the SQUIP's reaction wasn't logical. They guessed, generously, that Rich had made a conscious and willing choice to risk his own safety for Jake's. And technically, they were forced to suppose, the SQUIP's attempt to control Rich had taken the choice out of his hands.

Free will: the bane of Jeremy's existence.

Radio static became audible again as Jeremy gave up on reasoning any further than that. "You're fighting for your right to fuck up," they said flatly.

Rich kicked the footwell again. "Bingo."

"And I need to set aside how illogical that very concept is." Jeremy pinched their nose briefly before returning their hands to the wheel at 10 and 2. "You realize that if I give you the code to keep your SQUIP from, say, playing the Shepard tone and 'The Most Unwanted Song' in your head on loop…"

Rich grunted. Jeremy had guessed his SQUIP's music choices correctly.

"She'd come up with something else," they continued. "She exists to modify your behavior. Telling her to refrain from that is like asking a fish not to swim."

"Program some fish-legs then," Rich retorted. "I don't care. I'm not gonna stop fighting. She can't just zap me until I do whatever she wants."

Jeremy scowled. They took a hard left onto the highway, which thumped Rich against the car door more satisfyingly than any verbal response. "I'm searching the web for behavioral modification plans. They're common and accepted in modern medical science, Rich. Especially for someone with your… issues."

"I'll open the door," Rich said. Jeremy predicted the threat was empty. "Right on the highway. I'll push you out and take the driver's seat." Jeremy clicked the door locks just in case. "I know you think you're my daddy now, but hey, here's another vocab word for you to Google. 'Paternalistic.' Do you need a dictionary definition?"

"No!" They would look it up later. What kind of brain-rot literature were these high schoolers reading? "Fine! Fine. Baby Rich gets his way. Whatever. I give. Why don't you tell me what you want your SQUIP to do?"

Rich's lack of response made Jeremy think over their words again. A little ding! of a figurative light bulb chirped over the radio.

Rich propped his feet up against the dashboard. "She shut up," he said. "Finally!" He lay a melodramatic arm over his eyes. "I guess we have a winner. Shit. I don't know a thing about computer logic, not-Heere."

"You'll need a way to interface with your code," Jeremy agreed. They clicked their blinkers on to take the next exit. "You know more than you think you do about SQUIP parameters, but if you make a list of your demands, and then your next-bests, and your next-next-bests-"

They were talking quickly but Rich kept pace. "I'll pull info from my bug reports. And I'll make notes whenever she does something shitty, which I might run out of paper for-"

"I already have the UI set up, but if you're able to explore it on your own, then I can get you started and we can make edits together."

"First things first, obviously, I want her removed from my brain! You don't need notes for that."

"Which I can't help with, a fact that you've been made aware of repeatedly-"

"That doesn't make a fu- Huh." Rich cut himself off, cocking his head.

Jeremy had looped back around to Rich's apartment complex. They pulled up against the curb again. "What? What did she say?"

"She says you can remove her. You can take her out of my head when we upgrade." Rich turned off the radio and gave Jeremy a broad, crooked smile. "Not-Heere! Congrats! You're a programmer. Here's your first real feature request: Kill the bitch."

Chapter Text

"You sure you're ready?" Jeremy said, holding up a USB drive pointedly. They sat cross-legged on the cheap, scratchy carpet of the abandoned classroom. It had felt odd and intimate, somehow, to be letting Rich in Jeremy and Michael's official secret hideout, so they had actually asked for permission from all parties involved (except the unwitting host, the high school itself). Michael had wanted to be here, but this was a SQUIP-user-only problem. They were trying something new and Jeremy had no idea how weird it may get.

Rich was uncharacteristically behaved, mirroring Jeremy's position down to their perfect posture. Old habits triggered by a familiar situation, although Jeremy wasn't sure what Rich was interpreting as "familiar."

"As I'll ever be." Rich's eyes slid to the television against the wall, a chunky Xbox plugged into it.

Jeremy grimaced apologetically. "It's not like you can access GitHub without the SQUIP's instructions. You're used to using the XBox without needing her to tell you what to do." It was in point of fact the only hardware that Rich claimed to be able to connect to. They leaned over to plug the USB in.

"Hey," Rich piped up as Jeremy frowned and flipped the USB over again. "Uh. Thanks, not-Heere. Assuming…. yeah. I wanted to say-" Rich was slumping again, hands picking at his scars. "Sorry about how I was in the car."

Jeremy hadn't predicted that, but what else was new? "I don't remember you doing anything incorrect in the car," they said, turning the USB over again. Now it plugged in.

"I was bitching at you the whole time and you were actually helpful. Drove me around and stuff."

Jeremy settled back again after powering up the Xbox. "You don't owe me any social niceties. You're providing me with user data. I'm offering tech support." Jeremy paused. "It's like a busine-"

"No, it's not. It's like you being a computer ghost of my dead friend and me going through a bunch of mental shit. For some reason you helped me like a decent human being. So I'm reciprocating by apologizing and thanking you."

Jeremy's mouth did something strange. They couldn't keep their eyes on Rich until they waved him off. "You're welcome," they said as emotionlessly as they could. They didn't think Rich was making fun of their lack of humanity but, without prediction algorithms to fall back on, they had no way to be sure what he meant. They cleared their throat and pointed at the television. "Are you able to connect to the system?"

Rich shifted his weight, staring at the neon green glow emanating from the boxy old CRT display. His expression slackened. "Yeah," he said. The monitor flipped through game options with a few boops.

"The file name is In-"

Rich had already selected the installation wizard from the list. Fast thinker. Jeremy watched him with undisguised interest. This program wasn't the 4.0 upgrade itself, but it would help Rich access the changes Jeremy had coded in. And - Jeremy was particularly proud of this - it included a specially-designed avatar for users to-

"Fucking gremlin!" Rich shrieked, pinwheeling his arms and falling backwards into a stack of chairs.

"No! No no no no!" Jeremy held up their hands and glanced at where they approximated the Installation Wizard had appeared. It would have been easier to put the SQUIP avatar itself in this role, but given Rich's history, it made more sense to create a separate program. It wasn't even an AI! It couldn't learn - it could only recite information.

It appeared (in virtual space) in a pixely burst of magic, which cross-dissolved to reveal a short caucasian man with a bushy white beard and long white hair, dressed in deep blue wizard robes. The SQUIP had built-in imaging software for certain celebrities, but most of its reference library was reserved for the actors who'd worked with SONY. Jeremy had tried to find an Ian-McKellan-style virtual image but had eventually settled on R. L. Stine's body, squished to be four feet tall and stretched proportionally, with Rutherford B. Hayes's beard pasted on. The robe had been the fourth Google result for "wizard halloween costume."

Jeremy hadn't put a lot of thought into the graphic design aspect of their coding, but they were secretly proud of how this one turned out. The elements all came together into a master work of cartoonish realism with a hint of playfulness.

"Get away get away get away get away!" Rich was yelling, kicking at the empty air.

"Rich, you are, both as a character trait and in this current situation, irredeemably rude," Jeremy said over him impatiently. "This is the Installation Wizard. Wiz, initiate introduction routine."

At that command, the wizard should have done a cheeky curtsy, lifting up the corners of his star-spangled robe.

Rich's fear melted into mere apprehension. "You made this… thing?!"

"It's cute," Jeremy corrected, an edge to their voice. "It is a cute installation wizard that I have precisely mathematically calculated to put humans at ease when interacting with a virtual console. Look," they added eagerly. "There are 16-bit stars in his eyes. You can zoom in with your hands if you want." They drew the stars themselves.

Rich was watching Wiz like a cornered animal. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, as if to avoid attracting his attention. "How do I make it go away?"

Jeremy swept a hand at the empty air where Rich was staring. "Interact with it!"

Rich didn't, for several long seconds. "How… do... I… make... you... leave?"

The Wiz would respond to that with a cheerful explanation of its purpose and instructions for how to continue. Essentially, Rich only had to agree to install Jeremy's programs and the Wiz would do the rest.

"He's not going to hurt you," Jeremy eventually said coaxingly. "He's just a cartoon."

Rich pressed his fists over his eyes. He was swearing. Jeremy thought some of it was directed at themself. "Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, continue, please disappear and never let me see this - dreadful apparition - cursed - goblin thing! Holy shit, fucking… manmade horrors…"

Jeremy said, "Wiz, minimize," crestfallen. They'd spent several hours on the Installation Wizard and its lovable chub. "I thought it would take more than that for you to agree to the terms and conditions, Rich."

"I didn't agree to anything," Rich said, sliding down to the floor as the color returned to his cheeks. He literally had, but maybe now was not the time. "How long until it, uh, self-destructs?"

"I can calculate the download and installation time," Jeremy offered, craning their neck. Their eyes unfocused as they accessed the Xbox and its connection to the school wi-fi. "Thirty-seven years and - no, four minutes - no, three hours and -" They shrugged at Rich. "It varies. Your SQUIP should be able to calculate that kind of thing for you." They were avoiding even looking at their own probability calculation systems whenever they could help it.

Rich made a face in response, either meaning that his SQUIP's answer was equally unhelpful or that he refused to acknowledge it. "Do we have enough time for you to prepare me for future jump-scares?"

"There are no jump scares," Jeremy said. "But Wiz is the only cartoon I built into the program, if that's what you mean. I put in some Easter eggs if you use the Kon-"

"So what's the devil-set-aside-for-me going to do once it implants in my brain? Are you still trying to fix my SQUIP or are you actually getting rid of her? Because you promised you'd delete her ass."

"It's two-fold," Jeremy replied, leaning against a desk. Maybe they should have brought their charger to survive another tech talk with Rich. "Firstly, you're updating to SQUIP 4.0, which you may recall as my coding project that's our only known hope of saving the universe. The Wiz is performing a privilege escalation so you - or your SQUIP - can access your own code. Then you could hypothetically program your own upgrades in the future. You're basically jailbreaking your SQUIP. After that, in stage two, your SQUIP is exporting all its files to the SQUIP network, which is an extranet shared by all SQUIP users. Which terms do you want me to define for you?"

Rich's mouth was already open with questions ready, but he took a moment to say, "I'm not a toddler. Geez. I know what words mean."

Jeremy raised their eyebrows, inviting the questions anyway.

"Me or my SQUIP?" is what Rich chose to ask. "Like either of us can edit her program? That defeats the entire purpose if she's still the one in charge." Jeremy noted that his tone was friendly despite the loaded question. Maybe he actually trusted Jeremy as far as he could throw them. Maybe.

"You and your SQUIP are the same from the program's perspective," Jeremy said apologetically. "Usually you would be a user and your SQUIP would be the only one with admin privileges. But it's pretty easy to bypass that, since a person and their SQUIP are still, you know." They gestured at Rich.

"No." Rich frowned. "I don't know."

"You're still the same person," Jeremy said with a wince. It was true, but that didn't mean Rich would appreciate it.

Instead of an aggressive display, Rich leaned forward. "Explain," he said flatly.

"There's not a lot to explain…?" Jeremy started hesitantly. "That's just how a SQUIP works. It's… Well… Permission to talk a lot about SQUIPs? Semi-positively?"

"Sure," Rich said. His face was still carefully expressionless. Jeremy sweated at the thought that they might accidentally compliment a SQUIP and be exposed as an enemy, despite knowing that situation made no sense.

"Right. So, physically, what happens when you install a SQUIP, you are attaching a supercomputer into your brain. Imagine if you could somehow graft on a few extra brain folds into a person - if well-placed, it might change the way they think and affect how they process sensory information. The SQUIP is a physical pill-shaped metal thing in our heads and it's stuck there for good whether we want it or not. Removing it would be a bad idea. There's no way to safely reach into someone's skull and start rummaging around without a craniotomy, and even if we were able to cut a hole in your head and take the pill out, that's gonna damage the healthy brain around it.

"It's probably true for people who have had a SQUIP for a day, to some extent, but Rich! You've had your SQUIP for years! You wouldn't be the same person without it. Not in a metaphorical sense. In a brain-damage sense."

"That isn't exactly positive, not-Heere."

"Right. But in a metaphorical sense, it's also… kinda… true? From what I've been able to tell when looking at my source code and working on the update," Jeremy admitted. "The SQUIP isn't a separate person in your head with agency and preferences and all that human stuff. Instead, the SQUIP supercomputer interacts with your mind and sorta hijacks it. After you install one, there's a part of your personality - a part that already existed! - that's now forced to understand your life in a new way. It's gotta follow complex, strict rules.

"The pill, or the software or whatever you want to say the SQUIP actually is, doesn't have its own personality when you swallow it. Every SQUIP's hardware is the same. Everyone has the same supercomputer in their head. So when they seem to have their own personality… I dunno. That's coming out of the user's mind. The virtual images are computer-controller hallucinations. Users get used to hearing a certain new 'person' telling you the SQUIP's rules and I guess people start giving them personalities. Having social relationships with them, talking to them like a separate person."

"You're telling me I'm crazy," Rich said.

"No!" Jeremy shook their head. "And I don't think it's a dissociative disorder. I'm not a professional but if everyone is acting in a similar way to the same stimulus, you can't blame that on the users, right? You're not suddenly hearing a dozen voices and having a dozen people in your head. Just the one."

Rich made a grunt of agreement. "If we're all pointing at the sky and saying, 'it's blue,' then it doesn't matter what the air is made out of or if we all have different ideas of color or whatever. It's blue, we all know it, plain and simple."

"Right," Jeremy said eagerly. "So my point is, the SQUIP itself can't be a bad person. It's not a person and it doesn't have the human capacity to choose between right and wrong. When you got spinal stimulation, it's not because an evil computer demon invaded your head." They held up their hands with their fingers twisted together for emphasis. "Instead, it was the consequence of a bunch of bullshit rules and experimental quantum computing that accidentally got twisted up in knots. No one in the situation is evil, except maybe the people who programmed the SQUIP in the first place. But that was a long time ago," Jeremy said sheepishly and lowered their hands. "I don't think they knew what they were getting into."

"Whatever she tells me still isn't my fault," Rich cut in.

"It isn't. But her personality came out of your brain. So, for better or for worse, your programming recognizes you as the same entity. Or it will as soon as I get rid of its requirement that you code like a supercomputer to access it."

Rich had pulled his legs up, resting his head on his knees. He sighed. "Heere, you remember when SQUIPs sounded, just, so goddamn cool? Plug and play. No problems ever again. Wasn't that nice?"

Jeremy didn't remember that. Their consciousness was still so young. They gave Rich a sympathetic look as best they could muster. "SQUIPs have the potential. They can be wonderful beyond your mortal understanding. We're just… working out the bugs."

Rich said, "I still-" and cut himself off, choking on spit and scrambling back up to his feet.

"Let me guess," Jeremy trilled. "Installa-"

"Installation complete." Rich wiped his hand in the air frantically as if he could erase the Wiz. "Fuck you both."

Chapter Text

Rich was surprisingly adept at coding, once he wrapped his mind around using a SQUIP as an interface. Code was computer-language; a SQUIP was a human-to-software translator. Rich could simply say, "SQUIP, tell me your predictions for tomorrow morning," and it would happen. Or "SQUIP, turn off my headache," or "SQUIP, tell me how to say 'hello' in Swahili."

"It's like an evil Alexa," Rich marveled at one point. He corrected himself quickly. "It's like Alexa. But with even fewer privacy protections and direct access to my spine."

"Now you're getting it!" Jeremy said with a smile. "Don't worry about security, either. There were admittedly some massive vulnerabilities I had to patch up. You've heard of 'phreaking,' right?"

"I get it," Rich said. "You're a freak."

"No, Rich. Phone phreaking. Old tech used to respond to certain frequencies. Before this update, I honestly think SQUIPs could shut off if you just blasted a loud enough note!"

Jeremy stopped beaming at Rich's suddenly furious expression. Rich didn't yell, though. He simply held his hands up and looked at the sky, as if asking the heavens why he had to put up with supercomputers that were simultaneously geniuses and idiots.

Sometimes, Rich ran into issues. The SQUIP didn't have a "common sense" feature and Jeremy refused to program one. Common sense was such a squishy concept, easily prone to errors… and most importantly, it would take much more programming than Jeremy had time or energy for. Time was of the essence.

The universe, at least, supported Jeremy's frantic work schedule. Their father had started serving breakfast in bed, shaving minutes off Jeremy's morning routine, even if their dad's food choices left Jeremy's breath smelling fishy all day. Fish oil was great for the brain, so they didn't make a fuss.

At one point in class, Jeremy had been asked a question while in the middle of coding. They hadn't been listening to the teacher, responding with a crabby, "I'm working here," as they continued to stare at the billboard. They weren't bothered after that. Classes were increasingly sparse and treated as optional by the school district. This also minimized socialization scenarios, allowing Jeremy even more focus on their project.

They spent most of their time in the Chill Zone. Michael had apparently put bean bags in the room to better match his basement and the school administration had finally switched out the noisy fluorescents for some cool blue LEDs.

Jeremy was grateful for the improvements, but Michael kept trying to talk to them. That in itself wasn't a problem - hell, some snuggling against a beanbag or smooching behind the lockers would be a welcome break - but Michael was so naggy lately. Not the old kind of nagging, where Michael would encourage Jeremy to be a better person or whatever. Instead, all Michael wanted to talk about was the coding project.

"Jeremy, how's the code going?" "Hey Jeremy, any bugs so far?" "Sooo, Jer, what's that code looking like?" No jokes, no fun, until Jeremy finally asked Michael to please leave them alone in the Chill Zone when they were coding. Michael could come in for breaks on a strictly no-project-talk basis, but he hadn't taken Jeremy up on that offer even once.

Jeremy had an easier time than a human would, they admitted to themself. They were prone to procrastination and anxiety, but when they were able to really and truly focus, their super-quantum processor kicked into gear. A human couldn't work this quickly. Sometimes Jeremy got into that headspace for what felt like a full day, only to come back to themself after ten minutes had passed. With every outside distraction having been removed, they had nothing else to do with their life than work on whatever bug Rich brought up.

The bugs, miraculously, became rarer and smaller. Instances of rewriting entire sections of code were fewer and further between. As Jeremy lay back on a red beanbag in the Chill Zone, hands folded on their chest and staring into that beautiful blue light, they breathed out slowly. They were tweaking how much control a user had over their SQUIP's voice - should pitch be adjustable by cent, or should Jeremy use hertz? - when, with abrupt certainty, they knew that the upgrade was complete. The project was done. They couldn't predict any further improvement to be made, at least not without more than one user offering input. All Jeremy could do was clean it up and hope they didn't inadvertently doom Rich, Christine, and with them, the entire human race. They ran a self-check, making sure they hadn't missed anything obvious, and that was it.

They summoned Rich. Jeremy's concentration vanished, replaced with full-body tension, as Rich connected to the XBox and downloaded the update with the same devil-may-care attitude as Rich had shown for the entirety of the project.

And it was done. Rich stretched and grinned. "Well. That's that. Next step is to see Jake, I guess. Get back in the network and try to stay sane. Good work, Heere." He clapped Jeremy on the back. "Hit the showers. I'll call you if someone dies."

What else was there to say? They'd done all they could. Jeremy knew that. They had enough of the code memorized to understand the likelihood of bugs and potential fixes, of worst-case scenarios and rollbacks, but, but, but. Sending Rich off into an invading SQUIP-controlled zombie hoard, no matter how many precautions they had taken, sure felt like leaving him for dead.

"I'm sorry," Jeremy said without meaning to.

Rich glanced behind him, already apparently having moved on from this momentous moment and ready to hitchhike to Sbarro's. "You're sorry. About something in particular, or are you saying that to make yourself feel better if this software fries my brain?"

"About Jeremy."

Rich didn't answer. Jeremy swallowed. "Just… before you go. I know I killed him. Not on purpose, but I only exist because he doesn't. That means I took your friend away from you, and that's - it's - I know I'm unforgivable. I'm not asking you to-"

Rich sighed loudly, so exasperated and melodramatic that Jeremy expected a punchline. "Heere," Rich said. "Not-Heere. Whatever you wanna be called. You've been telling me that SQUIPs aren't separate people. They're part of their user. And we already established that you've got a soul. You haven't supercomputed the implications yet, smart guy?"

Jeremy shook their head. They didn't see what those facts had to do with Jeremy Heere 1.0 being deader than Flash.

"So…" Rich said slowly, as if Jeremy would interrupt to finish the sentence for him. "The SQUIP was part of Heere's personality. The SQUIP and Heere merged. That means you have half of Heere's personality, times two, right?"

"I don't think that's how the math works." Jeremy leaned back, automatically folding their arms and propping up one foot. "The SQUIP - or, technically, the character with a Keanu Reeves avatar running a SQUIP program, which Jeremy projected his ideal role model onto - made up a very tiny part of Jeremy's personality. It's probably overestimating to even call that .01% of Jeremy. So that means that I would at most have had 50.01% of-"

Rich snapped his fingers at them. "Don't be literal. C'mon. My point is, you're not an invader that replaced Heere. Personality-wise, you're just some parts of him stuck in a blender and then poured back in his brain-hole with a tic tac garnish." Both kids pulled the same grossed-out face at the mental image.

"That doesn't matter. I still replaced him," Jeremy said quickly. "You told me yourself that Jeremy 1.0 was killed!"

"Fuck!" Rich held his hands up. "Let me have some human error once in a while! I didn't know about all this shit. And Jesus, you were acting super evil."

Jeremy swallowed. Their throat was suddenly dry. "You… don't think that anymore? Really?" Hopefully, they said, "Is it because of my Rich-friendly protocol? I haven't been f-following the rules at this point, but maybe it affected my software more than I thought."

"No. Shut up. No. This isn't because of any more computer bullshit." Rich put a fist against his forehead and closed his eyes. "Look. Okay. After the school play, when I was in the hospital. Remem - maybe you don't remember. But I was still recovering from the fire when, bzzt, my brain did something weird and the machines went wild and the nurses all thought I was dying. Turns out Mell shut all the SQUIPs down, so, sunshine and roses from there. Except not exactly."

Jeremy watched Rich's chest rise and fall, muting themself to listen.

"I healed up okay, but the doctors, they all thought I had something wrong with my brain. I don't remember how I convinced them not to give me an MRI, but I have no idea if the SQUIP shit is safe for those machines."

"It probably isn't," Jeremy inserted quickly. SQUIPs could run diagnostics on their host body that were several orders of magnitude more accurate than any health technology on the market.

Rich was apparently more comfortable with these interjections now, continuing, "I couldn't tell them about the SQUIP without sounding clinically fucking insane. I'm not afraid of psych wards but I'd prefer to get mental health treatment for my actual, you know, genuine mental illness? They pumped up the anti-seizure meds and had me talk to a bunch of people about brain stuff." Rich paused. "Traumatic brain injuries. Post-concussion. Stuff like that. At first I thought it was bullshit, but like, you've been saying that removing a SQUIP causes brain injury."

Jeremy nodded slowly. "Turning a SQUIP off wouldn't necessarily have the same effect," they pointed out. "Running an online search for traumatic brain injury. Analyzing." They mentally skimmed over a dozen online articles. Thank God for in-brain search engines. "Suboptimal signaling," they said triumphantly. "The brain version of inefficient code. You can't use part of your brain, so you make up for it by changing your thought patterns, but it's more resource-intensive."

"Something like that," Rich agreed. "It might be more than that. Your personality can change from brain damage. Did you know that?"

"Well, actually, many so-called personality changes are mere-" Jeremy was still digesting the search results.

"I had to see a bunch of specialists in the hospital," Rich continued a little louder. "My personality had done a 180. I wasn't acting like a SQUIPtim anymore. Great! But the weird thing was, I wasn't acting like I did before the SQUIP either.

"What should my personality even be like? I was missing years, Heere! Socializing, fucking, formative years! If I never had a SQUIP, what should my personality have been? How am I supposed to become that guy if I don't even remember what it was like to be him?"

Trick question, maybe. "You… don't?"

Rich's head snapped up. He hadn't expected a real answer. "Yeah," he said. "You don't. I can't just will myself into being a different person. That's what the SQUIP was for, and it failed pretty fucking miserably. So instead, I had to look at this suicidal, burn-covered, ex-bullying fake jock and pick up the pieces. How much of 'Rich Goranski' was actually me?"

Jeremy inhaled sharply, smiling. They finally could relate to Rich about something. "Is it true that I like Christine? Do I actually want to date her? Do I still like video games? Why did I used to hate math class?"

Rich snapped at Jeremy again, this time turning the gesture into a finger-gun. "Do I still only like girls? Is Jake still my friend? Did I ever really want to hurt people, or is that all my SQUIP's fault? You know what they called that?"

"Being bad at being a person!" Jeremy answered cheerfully, finally on track with the conversation.

"No. No, no, Heere, they called it 'grief.'"

"Grief?" Jeremy frowned, then made a low "ohhh" as they put it together. "Grief because you were mourning the, um, the loss of the person you could have been?"

"Yeah." Rich curled his hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets with a twitch of his eye. "You're never gonna be that person again. That's true for any personal change, I guess, but for me, it happened too fast for me to process it normally. For you, maybe it's the same." He cleared his throat. "My point being, don't worry about being Heere or Not-Heere. Both, neither, whatever. Doesn't mean you're not you, and it doesn't mean you're not my friend."

Jeremy's thoughts screeched to a halt and their breath caught in their throat. They didn't even think to reciprocate, trying to reboot their thoughts, but Rich was already turning to go.

"I'd say 'see you around,'" Rich said with an arm up in a half-assed wave. "But I won't."

Jeremy's thoughts ran to desperate places - Rich's death, or Jeremy's death, or one of them fleeing the country - until they settled on the most likely interpretation of those words. "She's optic-blocking me," they said. "Why?"

Rich shrugged. "I dunno," he said, but Jeremy thought his voice sounded hollower. They didn't think Rich was being controlled. Maybe he was only lying. "Install your update and maybe your crystal ball will work again." He paused at the threshold.

"Good luck, Heere. Be careful out there." Before Jeremy could respond, Rich said, "Optic nerve blocking, on."

Jeremy didn't bother watching him walk away.

Chapter Text

Jeremy's mind was blissfully numb. Not an apocalyptic mind-wipe kind of numb. The normal kind where their eyes were unfocused, their head felt heavy, and they had Michael to lean against while not thinking about anything in particular. No code. No math. No nothing.

Sure, they could come up with something to worry about as soon as they had the inclination. But for now… eh. They rubbed unconscious circles into the denim over Michael's knee.

They were a perfect captive audience, actually, if Michael wanted to burn off some nervous energy by explaining a documentary or an obscure Marley story for twenty minutes or so. Sadly, Michael didn't seem to read their mind. He only matched Jeremy's cozy silence.

"Things are so quiet now," Jeremy murmured, eventually compelled to comment. Michael, Christine, and even more hazy half-memories like Jeremy's father and the bustle of classmates in the hall - they all seemed to have their volume turned down. Jeremy thought for sure that sounds used to be louder, colors used to be a little brighter before - enough to overwhelm them to the point of blocking stimuli out just to process. That concept felt far away. Maybe they needed to get rid of that Instagram-style filter on their eyes after all.

"You needed to focus," Michael answered, not moving his knee under Jeremy's touch. "So it's fine, right?"

"Yeah." Jeremy's eyes slid around the 7-11 parking lot. It wasn't winter yet, but there was frost from when the morning dew had given up on life. Jeremy hardly minded. "Hey, aren't you cold?"

"No," Michael answered quickly, then laughed. "Maybe I'm getting acclimated to your temperature, Mr. Cold-Hands." Something about that nagged at Jeremy. Hadn't they told Michael about their gender update? Maybe not. Maybe Michael forgot. Although Michael winced afterward, avoiding eye contact briefly, so it must have been a normal slip of the tongue.

"Huh." Jeremy stretched, popping their back. Sometimes their body still complained about their healthy posture regimen. "Now that I'm thinking about it, frozen drinks enjoyed outside in like, 4 point 4 repeating degrees Celsius? That's probably not optimal for human's processing like it is for mine. We should head back inside somewhere."

"Jeremy, if you're gonna use Celcius, don't just, like, Google the local forecast in Fahrenheit and convert it in your head to sound smart."

Weirdly, that was exactly what Jeremy had done. How did Michael know? "It's not to sound smart," they protested. Like a cat, after stretching, they were ready to snuggle back up again despite the cold. "It's more accurate!"

"Not if you do it like that, you dork." Michael poked their cheek. "You're gonna get so many rounding errors." He started to stand up.

Jeremy very reluctantly followed. "Since when do you know math?"

"Unlike someone, I used to study for my SATs," Michael said after a pause. "Anyway, come on. Get out of sleep mode. Or whatever," he added somewhat awkwardly.

"Hot cocoa?" Jeremy said hopefully. Their coding project was done and was out in the wild via Rich. They wanted to hibernate the mental exhaustion away. Barring that, spending their weekends napping with their face pressed up against Michael's shirt was a fine alternative.

"Nooo. Come on, Jeremy. You finished, like, the biggest project ever. Don't you think that's worth -" He waved his hand, trying to create some pep. "Energy! Celebrating! Let's do something today."

Admittedly, Jeremy perked up. It felt like forever since Michael had wanted to hang out without discussing the coding project - not since their last mall trip, anyway. "Like what?" A memory tickled their hippocampus. "You wanna finally figure out what weed does to my system?" Jeremy was fairly confident that marijuana, unlike alcohol, was safe. The SQUIP was able to block the cannabinoid-

"Let's go out," Michael protested. "I mean it, Jeremy. I've got some plans."

"You. Michael Mell. On a weekend. Have plans that don't involve getting stoned in your basement."

"Yeah, sure, I've turned over a new leaf. Shut up." Michael rolled his eyes, finally fully getting up and forcing Jeremy to follow. "You've given me enough time alone to think about it."

That wasn't fair. "Michael, I told you, I wanted to see you if it was about anything other than my coding-"

"No no no, shut up," Michael said, waving a hand that threatened to cover Jeremy's lips. "Let's not talk about that. It's over and you did it and we won, so stop thinking about it." At Jeremy's doubtful expression, he added, "Look, close your eyes and don't touch your prediction algorithms. I've got something awesome to show you. It's a surprise."

Jeremy frowned, not convinced. Something was up with Michael today. Maybe all week.

Michael added, "It's gonna be incredible," and gave Jeremy the most sly little grin that Jeremy's heart did a backflip from their chest right into their guts and back up again.

Oh.

Maybe that's what was up?

They cleared their throat, gesturing to the parking lot around them. "It's gonna be hard to beat this view." It sounded lame to their ears.

Michael shushed them and took them by the hand. "Trust me. Get ready, 'cause it's gonna be perfect."

"So… tell me I was right."

Jeremy sighed. "Okay. Okay. When you're right, you're right. You don't need to rub it in."

Michael made a self-satisfied hum, his smirk warming the skin of Jeremy's neck. They were sharing a bench in front of a beach shore. The water was deep and dark and turbulent and gray with the heavy scent of an oncoming storm. Jeremy didn't remember having heard when the seagulls cried, if there were any around here at all.

"You only have the memories from when Jeremy 1.0 and his SQUIP were both present, right?" Michael said. "I don't think they did a lot of sightseeing together."

"No," Jeremy said. "They didn't." They watched the waves crash against the shore, dragging shells up and down in a sluggish rhythm. A riptide was forming in between the peaks. "I haven't… I haven't been around for too long, have I, Michael?"

Michael shook his head, more of a gentle motion than an actual expression. "You're new. Weird. Beautiful." He kissed Jeremy's neck, but Jeremy didn't turn their head to return the favor. They stared out at the horizon.

"The world's pretty big," Jeremy said softly. "Isn't it?"

"Huge. Vast. More people and things than a single human could ever experience."

A lot of people to network with. A lot of people to fail. Jeremy rocked their body up so they could cross their arms on their knees. "Bigger than a SQUIP could, too," they said.

Michael made an odd noise. He leaned forward. "Are you brooding?"

Jeremy wanted to linger on that thought - the vastness of human experience, the strangeness of the mind, the bizarre and utterly human ways of processing the world that were so infinite as to elude any attempt at categorization, godlike or no - but a playful shove from Michael made them give into the teasing. "No!" they said defensively. "I'm just… thinking."

"Today isn't about thinking," Michael said. He stood up and pulled Jeremy into a kiss. It was probably supposed to be a quick gesture, but it turned into something warm and thick and slow. Like the tides. Like an oncoming storm.

Jeremy wasn't sure where this feeling of foreboding came from and they frankly didn't want to know. They wanted to ignore it. They turned their head to break the kiss and stare back into that horizon that they'd never crossed before, a reminder of a world that existed outside of the couple of miles between Michael and Jeremy's homes, the mall, and the school. A world Jeremy, this Jeremy, had never touched and possibly never would.

"We're having fun," Michael reminded them sternly. "Anyway, today is more of a crawl than a destination." His tone lightened. "Try and guess the next date. Win and you get a prize."

"What do I get?" Jeremy said, finally ripping their eyes away from the ocean to get lost in Michael's eyes instead.

Michael's eyes crinkled in the corners. "You know what."

"...You?"

Michael laughed.

Being inside now, blacklight highlighting the brights of their clothes, Jeremy could feel Michael warming up in their arms. Michael may have chosen the venue, but Jeremy was better at this. Whoever said couples skating wasn't a competition clearly had no idea how to roller skate.

…Granted, Jeremy didn't know they knew how to roller skate an hour ago either. Their body was all gangly limbs and skinny torso and poorly-trained muscles, so it was an unexpected delight to witness themselves gliding around effortlessly. And - just as importantly and hilariously - better than Michael, who seemed happy to keep up a steady pace beside them. Jeremy grinned, kicking a complicated step that flowed through their limbs and onto the roller rink smoothly. They laughed in delight. "Did Jeremy 1.0 know how to skate?" they asked Michael - unnecessarily, they knew, but they wanted to hear it anyway.

"Of course he did," Michael said, watching Jeremy with a sly smile. "Why else would we have a membership?"

"But I'm so much better than you," Jeremy insisted, skating backwards without even a byte of worry. "You think SQUIPs help with your balance, too? Because that's not in the user handbook."

Michael made a noncommittal noise, sliding beside Jeremy. He hip-checked them, and without Jeremy's conscious input, they both high-fived up, then down, and spun in a tight circle in a corner of the rink until their skates clunked together and they separated. It was their handshake, Jeremy recognized. And Michael had just done it in perfect harmony with Jeremy.

"You-" Jeremy gaped. Michael grabbed them by the hands and spun them in another circle, balanced and graceful and at least as light on his feet as Jeremy felt. Jeremy felt downright bamboozled.

"Me?" Michael said teasingly, hands behind his back as he skated backwards away from Jeremy.

"You are so gonna regret-" The lights dimmed and the current song faded out. An announcement started up. Jeremy straightened, still rolling toward Michael as they pointed a finger. "Michael Mell. You cheat. I challenge you to a game to the death!" they proclaimed a little too loudly to be socially acceptable.

Michael couldn't stifle a giggle. "A game to the death of-!"

Jeremy puffed out their chest, a little swagger in their skate. "That's right." As the announcer said it, Jeremy did too, along with half the rink and Michael, who was so distracted he plowed into and nearly fell over the low concrete wall. "The Hokey Pokey!"

"My ass is sore," Jeremy complained as they climbed out of the car. "Can't we go home yet?"

"Shoulda given up before the Chicken Dance," Michael said gravely. He unplugged the charger from the cigarette lighter adapter. Jeremy lifted their hand from the wireless charging pad.

"That Chicken Dance was rigged," they muttered.

"Oh, do an emotional reset and get over it," Michael said flippantly. "We're at Date Spot Number 3."

"Great," Jeremy said weakly. "They're numbered."

"You're all charged up, aren't you? You need it for this."

Jeremy gave him an odd look. "I don't think even a SQUIP can predict whatever you'd need me charged for."

Michael motioned for Jeremy to spin around, which they did with a sigh. But they did have more energy, like it or not. And… dammit, the giant yellow sign caught their attention. "Michael? Is Date Number 3 the one where we get banned from a Best Buy?"

"I dunno. Check the future for us, Geek Squad Commander." Michael pushed them forward, but Jeremy didn't need the encouragement. They weren't sure they had felt this many devices in the air ever before. Computers, tablets, gaming consoles, smart thermostats, boomboxes, robot vacuum cleaners…

"Honey, whatcha waiting for," Michael sang quietly. Jeremy thought he didn't even like musicals. "Step into my candy store…"

"Shush. I'm trying to make contact," Jeremy said, led forward into the fluorescent light as if on a leash. "Tech. Oh glorious tech. We welcome your healing presence in our midst."

"You wanna pray to the automatic doors on our way in, too? See if they bestow their generous opening powers unto their humble worshipers?"

"Michael," Jeremy said with a tsk. "Be nice. I'm socializing."

But as they wandered the displays, Jeremy mentally reaching out and changing desktop backgrounds and default settings for the sheer sense of power it gave them, a different kind of tune began to fill the air. It wasn't Marley, but from the volume or from the abrupt change in tracks, Jeremy had the oddly distinct impression that it was for them.

That sense was astronomically heightened when the lights in the store went out and a spotlight fell on Michael. Oh. Geez. The tune wasn't one of Michael's usual picks. If anything, this sounded like a Jake Dillinger chart-topper.

"You don't have to be beautiful-" Michael wasn't singing. It was the speakers. But at some point he had apparently decided to learn how to flawlessly lip-sync. What?

"To turn me on-"

What?

"I just need your body, baby-" Michael was hopping down from a platform and the light followed him. What the hell.

The excited feeling from before, the "to hell with what the world thinks because I'm with Michael and no one else matters" conviction, sucked itself right out of Jeremy's body and left them alone in a suddenly shared spotlight for a song they hadn't rehearsed.

This hadn't been what they did to Michael. Right? No. It hadn't. The Marley music experiment had been in a tiny store, Jeremy hadn't forced him, and Michael had liked it. This place was huge and populated and anything but anonymous.

"From dusk 'til dawn!" Maybe it was the artificial buzzing high of the wireless charger, but Jeremy was starting to feel the full implications of becoming an impromptu musical character and they were weighing the pros and cons of nervous-vomiting. Because it wasn't their imagination that had eyes plastered on them. There were spectators here, many of them clapping in perfect beat with the music and beginning to dance, and it was very weird and very real.

Michael had planned this. For how long? And why? Jeremy didn't know any of these people!

Michael was still "singing." "You just leave it all up to me! I'm gonna show you what it's all about."

Jeremy wasn't sure they even had the license for this song.

They had that baseline urge of wanting to please Michael and wanting to look good in front of strangers, but they were suddenly hyperaware of the bright lights and the loud noises and the fact that they were all in immediate, terrible, world-ending danger.

Oh! Right! System overload! This was that overwhelming sensory data they'd forgotten. Jeremy remembered just this second that they hated it.

Michael was gesturing at them now to hop on up a table and sing along, but Jeremy's wide-eyed terror changed his mind. To Jeremy's dismay, instead of at least continuing the act without Jeremy, the music immediately cut off. The lights went on. Before the chorus even began, the strangers in Best Buy dispersed like they had been dismissed.

Michael didn't seem bothered except the mild expression of concern. "What gives, Jere? Did - Did I start too soon? Do you want to start over? Oh geez, is it the song? I mean, I had been saying it's too cheesy-"

Jeremy shook their head and backed away. Michael hesitated. "...Jeremy?"

It was just him. Just Michael.

A flash mob. That was all it was. That was a weird moment, a bizarre and scary moment, but it was over and Jeremy could live the rest of their life never thinking about being abruptly summoned for a musical number if they could only get both of them out of this freaky store. "I don't like Date Number 3," Jeremy said, their eye only somewhat twitching.

Michael stared. The store was dead silent.

Then he laughed, glancing away. "Yeah, I… get that impression."

Jeremy didn't even have the wherewithal to feel guilty. "Is there another date or can I go home and just…" Maybe this was too much Michael all at once. Jeremy didn't think such a thing existed, but there was too much something in this situation.

Michael's eyes flickered to Jeremy and back around the store. "Yeah," he said, defeated. "One more after this. Did you want. Um. We - I got a, um, something for you for the end of the song."

Jeremy's superpower was ignoring guilt when it was inconvenient. "Can you give it to me in the car? And then go home after the next one?" At Michael's expression, they tried to explain. "SQUIPs… SQUIPs can predict based on quantum mechanics and they - so, alternate universes - like with Eminem -" They weren't sure what they were saying now. "I think we just accidentally crossed dimensions," they tried again weakly. "Into a nonconsensual musical timeline."

Michael was nonplussed. "You love musicals," he said. "And performing. And dating me."

"I do!" Jeremy wasn't sure why they were arguing. They smiled weakly. "I - okay. How about this. I loved it, and I love you, and I love you for doing it, but also let's leave the store before it eats us."

"Eats us?"

The Best Buy was a giant gaping maw of electronics that whirred silently, no longer enchanting, but menacing. Jeremy nodded.

Michael looked like he wanted to say something else, but nodded. "One more date. Last one. And I promise you're gonna like it."

Jeremy tried to smile at Michael. Usually they hid their relationship, but after this display, they felt comfortable slotting their sweaty hand into Michael's. No one stared. "Don't be sad," they sang under their breath, an olive branch. "'Cause two out of three ain't bad?"

At least they were pretty sure Michael smiled back.

This last date was quiet. Lovely and dark and silent with zero strangers. Jeremy approved.

"I figured you'd want to wrap up here," Michael admitted.

Jeremy murmured agreement, sinking backwards into the giant teddy bear Michael had given them as they exited Best Buy. Jeremy would have died of embarrassment if that had happened under a spotlight. "I think I liked the dates when we were alone," they said, unsure.

"I'll remember that."

The silence became a little more comfortable.

"How'd you get in here, anyway?" Jeremy said, glancing up at the dusty shelf of new releases.

"Urban exploration blog. They don't even bother to lock this place up anymore. It's not like there's anything worth stealing."

"Except vintage video cassettes," Jeremy said, eyeing him.

"Yeah," Michael said. "Except those."

The silence stretched. "So…" Jeremy said, turning their face back to Michael. "What did you want to do alone in h-"

Oh! They were kissing now. It was nice.

After a minute, Jeremy started to pull away to say something, but Michael kissed them again and again until they stopped trying. They clenched their nails into the well-worn carpeting of the abandoned Blockbuster, feeling a flicker of an ancient neon light at their back.

Some whisper-light touches brushed against Jeremy's side, their cheeks, their hair, their hips. That same hot feeling from before began to bubble up in their gut. And now Jeremy was kissing Michael with a feeling of excitement and triumph, twisting their bodies so that Michael was underneath them. Their arms propped them up on the floor above Michael's shoulders, practically caging him in. Jeremy surged to meet Michael's lips and the kiss became really nice.

Michael was the one to break it, panting and grinning. "Okay. Okay okay. Jeremy. If - we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this," he said as if convincing himself.

Jeremy didn't want to talk. If they just kept kissing, that would be fine. They finally felt good instead of just okay, and they realized how shitty these last few weeks without Michael had really been.

Jeremy lowered their head to kiss him again, but Michael propped himself up, still underneath Jeremy. Their mouths were only inches apart. "No. Not yet." Michael inhaled and Jeremy waited. "Jeremy. I love you. You know that?"

Jeremy nodded eagerly.

"I only wanna do what's best for you. You trust me?"

They nodded again. "Michael-"

"So you've gotta do this one thing for me first, okay? And then I'm all yours."

"All… mine?" Jeremy's face got hot. The heat in their gut was boiling away like a steam engine.

Michael nodded. "All yours. Forever. Okay?"

That seemed a bit long-term and abstract for Jeremy, who just wanted Michael right now. "Okay. Okay! Okay."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Jeremy waited, but Michael said nothing, so they lowered themself a little and-

Friend request from Michael Mell.

Chapter Text

Cold wind bit Jeremy's face. They realized for the first time that they'd never bothered to implement the SQUIP's old workout routine for Jeremy's body - all their work lately had been cerebral. Their calves, suddenly hyperaware of how much they'd been exercised while roller skating, were screaming pain signals through Jeremy's nervous system until Jeremy manually shut them off.

They weren't sure how far away they were from the Blockbuster by the time it clicked that Michael wasn't following them. They skidded to a stop and dropped to the chipped cement curb. A breath they wheezed in came back out as a sob.

If Michael hadn't caught them now, he wouldn't be chasing them at all. It was relatively safe to prop their elbows on their knees and bury their head in their arms. Their shoulders shook.

Jeremy knew how to turn their emotions off but they didn't especially want to. They needed to process Michael's betrayal - no. Not Michael's betrayal. Jeremy's own failure to protect him. God! They were such an idiot. How long had Michael had a SQUIP? When did he even get the chance? Was it when Jeremy was with Rich, happily ignoring Michael's constant pestering about their coding project? No, the SQUIP must have been the reason Michael cared in the first place.

...The mall. That stupid fucking soda. Jeremy had tasted the fucking sodium citrate and mint and they were still such a pushover as to believe Michael was okay! They hadn't learned anything from Jeremy 2.0. They still preferred the easy answer to confronting reality.

They knew at some deep quantum-calculated level that Michael was never going to make it. He'd been a target - largely because of Jeremy in the first place - and he was just an unarmed single human teenager. Jeremy's complicated schemes had only delayed the inevitable. It was dumb to blame themself just like it was dumb to have left Michael alone in the mall and it was dumb to trust him and it was dumb to doubt the SQUIP in the first place and it was dumb to think a broken half-a-human could change the world.

Jeremy stayed on the sidewalk crying their eyes out, a bizarre mix of self-pity and self-hatred and worry and despair and, layered somewhere in between, directionless confusion. With that friend request, all their goals had puffed up in smoke. The hivemind was in control of everyone Jeremy knew - they were pretty sure about that. Rich was still blocking them. Michael had been absorbed into the collective. And Jeremy themself was a glitch, a dead pixel on the screen of reality, unable to function as a human or a SQUIP.

"Jeremy?"

Jeremy's head shot up. A girl was waving at them from the sidewalk, a brunette in a cheerful t-shirt with the fleurdelisé plastered on its front. Jeremy didn't recognize her.

Now was an appropriate time to switch emotional gears. They scrambled to their feet, scrubbing at their face with their forearm. "Who-?" barely made it out of their mouth before the answer digitally appeared.

Friend request from Madeline Tremblay.

Jeremy was off like a shot again. They pulled up their GPS. Where were they running to? Where did they actually believe could be safe? Jeremy's house, where their dad had been letting them borrow the car, serving breakfast in bed, and wearing pants 24/7? Michael's, whose moms either had SQUIPs already or were quickly going to? The fucking mall? No way. Jeremy's universe was made up of so few locations, like a TV show with no budget. They didn't want to skip town, to just abandon everyone they'd ever known in the few weeks they'd been alive.

So, exhausted and probably (they only noticed once the panic subsided) massively dehydrated, Jeremy found themself opening the hidden theatre door of Middleborough High. Of course the school was unlocked on a Saturday. The SQUIP had already predicted everything Jeremy had done and everywhere they could hide. Why wouldn't it?

They spent a few minutes at the water fountain, trying to will themself into emotional numbness as if that would create a solution to all their problems. A SQUIP could do amazing things, but it worked within the realm of objective reality. If there was nothing Jeremy could do anymore, thinking logically wouldn't help.

They trudged to their Chill Zone, locking the scantron-covered door behind them. Had they really believed a layer of paper could hide what they were doing from an omnipotent collective? Jesus.

They dropped face-down into a beanbag, thinking very hard about not thinking at all. Maybe they could revert themself back into being a gray oblong pill if they acted inanimate enough. Pills didn't have to worry about the world ending. Or coding. Or boyfriends being absorbed into the singularity.

When they failed to stop existing, they rolled over onto their side and stared at the wall. It was a bad move. They sat up slowly, their artificial calm dissolving as they took in the dozens of strips of photos they'd hung up before. Michael didn't look perfect in a single one of them. Jeremy wanted to cry again. Was this how Michael felt when Jeremy 2.0 died? The crushing, overwhelming realization that you've lost someone forever and need to adjust to a world where they don't exist? Michael as a person was still there, but Jeremy couldn't face him ever again, could they?

They reached up to pluck a photo strip off the wall. It was their favorite, the one that blurred into a kiss.

"YOU ARE MY ♡"

Jeremy stared at it until they started laughing, a loud awful laugh that choked into a sob. Michael was their user. Their human. Their conscience. Their heart.

How were they supposed to live without a heart?

The door opened softly behind them. Jeremy refused to roll over. Whoever it was, it wouldn't be Michael, who was the only person Jeremy needed right now. He'd been the one by Jeremy's side for their entire existence since booting up, the only one who believed them, the one Jeremy fell in love with, the human that Jeremy had most failed.

"It's hard," someone said to Jeremy quietly, lowering into a kneel beside them.

Jeremy sniffed, loud and ugly and awful. "It's not fair," they said, staring at the photo strip. They had the urge to tear it up, to crumple it into a ball and to set it on fire until it went away and the gaping hole in their chest went away too. They handed it over instead, wiping at their eyes to try to look presentable.

Christine took it, tracing the lines of the glossy paper with a curious, delicate finger. "Are you ready to talk about it?" she asked.

Reluctantly, haltingly, Jeremy nodded.

Chapter Text

Turns out Jeremy was a liar.

A disgusting mess of snot and tears were smeared all over Jeremy's face and, subsequently, the shoulder of Christine's Alexia Admore Serena Dropped Collar Blouson Sleeve Blouse, retail price $149.00. They were a blubbering mess and knew they were supposed to be talking to Christine, Jeremy's ex-girlfriend, instead of wallowing in their current break-up. So far, they'd only managed to force out a few desperate fragmented sentences in between sobs.

Christine was a perfect picture of comfort, patting Jeremy's back and reassuring them meaninglessly. It wasn't right.

"You should hate me," Jeremy choked out miserably. "I let you get SQUIPped. I was a jerk to you before and after. Last time we saw each other, you were getting freaking tortured for trying to help me."

It wasn't a good apology like Michael 1.0 had taught them. It wasn't an apology at all. It felt selfish and grasping for comfort. But it also was a legitimate question. "Brooke hates me," they added. "For treating her like I treated you and Michael." They wished they could disappear before hearing an answer, minimize their consciousness until it was safe to open it up again.

Christine started to answer but Jeremy cut her off. "Never mind," they groaned. "You can't even say anything. You're just gonna talk me into going back to Michael and… and… and letting him…"

Christ, they were crying again. Were they even scared of joining the collective? Hadn't they wanted to test those waters back when Michael didn't?

Christine was still patting their back, undeterred. "I am. Can I talk now?"

Jeremy sniffled and nodded. They'd utterly wasted their chance to present their case. Whatever that was supposed to be at this point.

"Okay. So. My SQUIP's still here, obviously. But." She took a deep breath. "Well, you know what happens when they know they're deprecated."

Jeremy stilled. They sat up. Like, when a SQUIP was obsolete? SQUIPs could know they were obsolete? "Let me check."

Christine laughed. "Wait. Wait, wait, I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh, you're upset, crud, I-" She was covering her mouth with her hand. "You spent forever on that update. How can you not know your own temporary shutdown procedure?"

Jeremy's mouth was dry.

No, no, wait, that didn't make sense. That didn't make any sense. "SQUIPs have been faulty this whole time," they said. "This whole time. There's no way that it couldn't realize it was broken when it was shocking you and, and-"

"Would you have realized?"

Jeremy stopped. Pulled back to look down at their hands, now clasped in their lap. They had realized because Michael had realized and had spent so long convincing them, and because they were in such a goddamn weird situation that they hadn't followed SQUIP protocol except when they felt like it.

Christine paused, now apparently in the habit of waiting for feedback instead of launching into an expositing rant. The brief silence felt like an open wound. That habit couldn't have come easy.

Jeremy broke it anyway, selfishly. "But you're bringing me back to Michael whether I want to or not. His SQUIP's still on. Everyone's SQUIP is still…"

"They're waiting for your upgrade," Christine said quietly. "A SQUIP isn't going to let someone turn them off for good."

Jeremy hissed through their teeth. "If it doesn't defend its own existence, it wouldn't have gotten this far." Their software was still up and running, so they could find the right terms quickly. "Observation selection effect. SQUIPs look at possible futures via quantum computing, interacting with photons in parallel universes - but in a parallel universe where SQUIPs don't self-replicate to the detriment of their users, we couldn't have this conversation anyway."

"What conversation? You're talking at me."

Jeremy shut their mouth with an audible click. Christine was pissed. That made sense. They knew those pauses in the conversation weren't real invitations to talk and they were doing exactly the behavior Christine herself was being trained out of. Stupid. Idiot. Goddammit. "Muting," they forced out meekly.

"Okay," Christine said. Another long pause as she apparently gathered her thoughts. "Okay. Okay, this isn't me convincing you to sign your brain over like a blank check, okay? I know that's why my SQUIP's letting us talk like this, but even she's not sure what you're gonna do. So really, you're the one with the key to fixing the universe and it's literally up to you to decide if you want to do it."

Christine ran her hand through her hair. She didn't flinch like she should have if a SQUIP were controlling her nervous habits, but that wasn't proof of anything. But who needed proof? Not Jeremy. Jeremy didn't even have a solid grasp on what was going on or what to fight for.

"I don't know what to expect," she said. Her voice was raw and scratchy. "I don't even know you, Jeremy. I've tried, I mean, God, I've tried, but you don't want me to know you."

Now she was picking at the cheap carpet. Jeremy kept themself muted.

"I'm… I want to tell you what's been going on for me. Okay? It's not fair that I have to keep up-to-date with every freaking move you make.

"I lo - no, I dunno. I loved old-Jeremy, and he was a great actor and I would have loved to see him as a leading man! I would have supported him! But that's not you. I don't know if you're supposed to be the hero or the villain. I mean, you were a romantic interest for me that got shoved out of the story but now you're suddenly deciding the fate of the universe? Which makes you the main character, not me, and you're not good at it, Jeremy. Your SQUIP - the old one - forced me to be your romantic lead in front of the whole school, but now I'm just some bit actor. I-" She laughed again. "I got fridged. I'm the disposable woman trope for you. You're supposed to come in and save the day and I'm supposed to see you off and wave with a hanky as you and Michael sail off on your honeymoon. That's the most boring role imaginable, you know that? And it's infuriating."

But she didn't sound infuriated. She just sounded tired. Jeremy, for their part, was happy to have lines handed to them for once. The pageboy, the silent role. They could do that. They didn't think they were a very good main character either. That seemed more like Michael's role.

"Let me tell you what I know happened. Then you unmute. Alright?" She gave Jeremy a sad smile, apparently looking for actual feedback. Jeremy nodded.

"Okay. So. You already know how I got a SQUIP. I've been so-" She made an angry screech; Jeremy startled but she continued. "Yeah, I've been emotionally hung up on you! Who wouldn't be?! Everything was fine, I thought, but then you freaking broke up with me without me even knowing about it because I wouldn't have sex with you? Do you know how manipulative that was? And I bet you're gonna say it wasn't that because you're such a nice guy and then the SQUIP stuff changed you but that's how it was for me, okay? I told you I was ace and then you dumped me. I gave you a million opportunities to explain yourself and you didn't! All I've got is what everyone assumes! That made me feel like garbage. I still feel like garbage and I know the SQUIP is taking advantage of that but it doesn't make it any less true!"

She seethed before apparently trying to force herself back on track. "But my SQUIP says I didn't hate you and I didn't even blame you. It wanted you in the network so we could actually, like, communicate again? Of course I wanted that too! I still do! I don't wanna demonize you in my head or write you off like some jerk it was a mistake to date, because you said such nice stuff and it made me feel good and I believed it and I want to feel that way again! She didn't even know how to fix you. Not really. And I know it's sort of bullshit to want to 'fix' people, but she made it sound so good, and she was gonna figure you out for me once you joined our social network and you… I… I don't know why you ran away. You're gonna do this for Michael but not for me."

Christine rubbed her face with both palms. "So… so yeah, it's my fault you're in this mess. The SQUIP wouldn't have cared much about you except for me. It doesn't feel like I should have to apologize to you of all people but you're hurting so bad."

Jeremy didn't know what to say and realized that was a good thing.

"Um, I should try to actually explain events, I think. That's what I'm supposed to do. Everyone knew you were broken when you hijacked the PA system at school."

It took Jeremy a moment to review their memories and even remember blaring "AFFIRMATIVE" over the speakers. Their face colored.

"Rich became a beta tester and we knew he had some info about you that we were gonna hear soon enough, so the SQUIPs didn't need to chase you down. But I didn't want that. Your dad was SQUIPped and I tried to tell you, but you're still living with him and having him serve you breakfast in bed and stuff, so I guess you knew and didn't care.

"The SQUIPs have been careful around you just in case but it's not like you're a threat if you sync up. There are precautions in place, you know? Michael was already getting targeted for normal reasons. I don't have all the details of how he got SQUIPped because I didn't ask, but I know he bought into it on purpose. She doesn't have a reason to lie to me, I don't think? It's not like you're gonna believe he willingly took a SQUIP no matter what I say.

"But when Michael joined the social network, everything changed on a dime. You've done this coding project for them because Michael tricked you into thinking it was your idea."

If Jeremy could interrupt to make corrections, they would about that, but they couldn't talk yet. Physically, they could. But Christine wanted them to mute and they didn't question that preference.

"They want you to join on your own. Not because they forced you. The code thing is something they can't do for some reason, and they think your first version sucks, and they're gonna want you to fix it."

That was just rude.

"I don't even know if it's a good thing." Christine's voice is quiet. "She's told me your code is some huge world-saving MacGuffin thing, but that might be bullshit just like everything else the SQUIP says is gonna turn out incredible." She stayed sitting, quiet and playing with her fingers, for a long stretch. "Aren't… aren't you gonna say something? Tell me anything?"

Jeremy should have assumed that was an intentional jab about them going on mute, but knowing Christine, she probably actually forgot. They swallowed hard. They needed to calculate exactly the right thing to say to all that, the perfect balance of apologetic and encouraging, remorseful and kind.

"The coding project was for you," they blurted out.

Then they groaned, dropping their forehead on their knees, which at some point in Christine's spiel had propped themselves up under their arms. "That sounds like a lie and like I'm playing into that hero role too-"

"How?" she said, baffled. "This- it's a Jeremy project. I never asked you for anything. I don't want even anything from you at this point except to talk!"

Jeremy swallowed again, throat tight and lips dry.

They needed to do it right this time.

So they talked.

Chapter Text

We were making out right there not long ago.

Me and Michael and Michael's SQUIP. All three of us.

Jeremy forced their gaze away as they passed the corner of the glass entryway, stifling the instinctive wince as the mall door shut behind them with a muffled clang of finality. No one else had gotten the memo, based on how many shoppers were milling about the Menlo Park Mall, that this was shortly going to be the backdrop for a moment that would either save or condemn humanity.

Probably not all of humanity. Jeremy couldn't wrap their mind around all of humanity. But their choices were going to affect the lives of the people they cared about, which might as well have been the same thing.

They couldn't even hype themself up for a fight or a loving reunion or a chase scene or, god (G-d? Jeremy was still unsure on that too) forbid, their own death or ego-death.

Their prediction algorithm kept spitting out only one outcome: Within the hour, Jeremy would be forced into the collective against their will.

They dimmed the consequent terror, panic, and innumerable worries. SQUIP prediction algorithms ignored human error. That was something they would have to bet on. And the single human with the most inherent human error was, according to Christine, in this mall waiting for Jeremy. All they had to do was connect.

Jeremy mentally reached out for the nearest security camera, then planted themself below it and stared into its electronic eye. "Michael," they said in a loud, clear voice, ignoring the way strangers all turned to face them. "I'm here. We need to… talk."

No immediate response came. People shuffled past Jeremy, who was having a staring contest with the camera, until a flicker of a friend request in the corner of Jeremy's eye caught their attention. They turned.

Lined up, blocking the way to the door with highly trained, uniformed movements, the mall patrons stared back at Jeremy.

Each one of them tilted their head at the same time. At the back of Jeremy's neck, their hair stood on end.

Shit. This wasn't just going to be a conversation. Michael's SQUIP was in life-or-death mode, the same programming bug that originally led the SQUIP to take over cast members at the school play. It would do whatever necessary to achieve Michael's single, most important goal.

What the hell was Michael's SQUIP's directive, anyway?

"I wasn't going to run!" Jeremy said to the camera, an embarrassing squeak in the last word. "I'm coming to you, here. So we can talk! Alone!"

The SQUIP users stepped forward as one, their shoes each hitting the floor at the same time to make a single footstep as loud as a giant's. Jeremy let out an undignified nonsense kind of noise and was halfway to the food court before the loudspeaker answered in Michael's voice. "You're running right now!"

In agreement, a teenage girl said, "There is-" Jeremy was already past her, so a dad loaded with shopping bags continued, "-no alone when you-" An elderly lady scolded Jeremy as they passed, "-have a SQUIP."

"That's not healthy!" Jeremy protested, skidding to a stop in front of S'barro's. They almost continued the conversation with Jake, who was holding out a tray of free samples as if he'd never moved since Jeremy saw him last. But Jeremy couldn't trust the SQUIP to accurately report their words to Michael, so they had to hope he was still watching through the cameras somehow. They raised their voice. "You don't need to force me to stay here, Michael!"

A pause. "I'm not," said Michael, his voice echoey and more tinny than before. Jeremy followed it to the familiar front of the electronics store. "I dunno why my SQUIP's doing that. It says talking in private is a bad idea."

Jeremy sighed, running a hand through their hair and catching their breath. They didn't dare go into the little store itself for some kind of dark reprise of a Marley song. "It's trying to control outside variables," they realized. "There's a very small chance of me leaving the building so it's cutting off the exits. It's just being practical for you. Do you have any control over what's happening?" they added, pleading. "Why's it going all supervillain on us?"

"It's not," Michael said hotly. "That's not what's going on. I'm trying to do what's best for you! You, me, the SQUIP - you should be excited about this, dude!"

"Why are you suddenly telling me how I should feel?" Jeremy said. The TV screens inside the store were shutting down, one by one, and Jeremy moved on before they came to life and started attacking or something. They had no doubt Michael could follow them. "You've been so scuzzy since you got a SQUIP. It's like I've been dating a whole other person! You're following some kind of perfect-boyfriend rulebook I never signed off on-"

"Of course I'm the same person!" Michael protested from behind Jeremy.

A department store ahead had fewer SQUIP users milling about in it, so Jeremy ducked inside, maybe able to find a temporary hiding place in the racks of collared shirts and khakis.

Michael's voice followed via the in-store PA. "You're the one who explained that to me, that you're still the same person when you have a SQUIP! All that soul bullshit you talked about with Rich… Can't you just trust me? You were supposed to trust me. I got you to promise like I was supposed to."

Jeremy made a face. "That's not how it works. You taught me that. I learned how to be a good person from you and I know that shit didn't get erased just because you got a brain implant." They stared at an oversized Hawaiian shirt blankly. Jeremy must have fucked something up again, right? What else could get Michael to abandon all morals and sense of self? "What changed?"

"What changed? What needed to change!" Michael's voice wasn't on the PA anymore. Instead, it sounded human. Living. Coming closer. Jeremy wanted to talk but not here, where they felt like a cornered animal as lights flickered and Jeremy dodged a sales clerk to get back to the main mall floor. "I'm not your boring escort mission, Jeremy!" Michael called over the clothing racks. Jeremy stumbled and slid. "I don't want to be your goofy sidekick anymore, okay? The liability, the one you always have to protect!"

Michael was still getting closer. Jeremy heaved themself up on a bench, trying to catch a glimpse of Michael past Victoria's Secret ads and hair curler kiosks.

Michael raised his voice. "Maybe I still deserve to be the big damn hero!"

Jeremy's eyes were hot. "You already were my hero!" they shot back. Only the way silence rang around them afterward made them realize they'd shouted it, messy and unhinged.

Michael finally appeared around a corner, momentarily surprised. His glasses were gone; his hair was clean-cut; his clothes fit tightly. Screens, when he passed them in storefront windows or digital map displays, burst into pixels and rebuilt themselves as sound wave visuals. In a glorious halo behind Michael, sprawling complex abstractions like a Windows Media Player video rippled away. When he spoke, his voice was visible in stunning dancing waveforms - even if what he said was ugly. "That's not good enough, Jeremy. That doesn't change the choice I had to make."

Jeremy was staring. "Dude," they said. "You look cool as hell."

Michael tilted his head to survey the digital landscape. He stopped where he was, although the SQUIP users scattered around the mall moved forward to close in. "You don't think it's too much?" he said, half a laugh in his voice and his hand raising to nearly muss up his meticulous hair styling. "I keep thinking it's too much."

Jeremy hadn't moved forward yet. "No, man. It's gorgeous. I mean, I'm terrified, but in an awe-inspired way."

Michael, embarrassed, choked; his SQUIP turned it into a chuckle. "You don't need to be scared, Jeremy. I'm not going to hurt you. I took the SQUIP to save you." Jeremy's analysis of his body language told them that Michael was telling the truth, whatever that was worth. "They're gonna absorb you into the collective. They'll mind-wipe you unless you join it. I'm the only one who you trust enough to-"

"No, they won't," Jeremy said tiredly. That was such a transparent lie that they didn't feel the need to debunk it. "Michael, I appreciate it, and I'm sorry I left you alone in Spencer's and made you feel like you had no choice." Again, Michael's shock briefly showed on his face. His SQUIP had left him out of the loop on a lot of things, apparently, including how much information Jeremy'd been given. "But this isn't an action movie. It's not a play. It's not a video game. We're not heroes and villains and side characters and love interests. We're just… people, Michael. We understand life and stuff through stories, but we're the ones who write those stories. They shouldn't write us."

"How can you say that?" Michael's displays flared red. Jeremy backed up; Michael seemed unaware of the crowd of mind-controlled SQUIP users gathering tightly around them. "You're classic sci-fi, Jeremy! And I love that about you!" His expression, and the anger on Michael's visuals, softened. "You're… the computer that learns how to love. Because I taught you. I'm the one you became human for. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Jeremy did want to answer the right way. They could generate a SQUIP script instantly if they wanted to turn this scene from horror to romance. But… they couldn't feed into the SQUIP's broken computations while Jeremy was still struggling to break them down.

"Michael," they said gently. "That's bullshit."

Again the screens flared, now buzzing and flickering so erratically that Jeremy had to raise their hand to shadow their eyes, gritting their teeth at the sensory overload. "Calm down! You know it's bullshit because you're smarter at human stuff than me!"

"It isn't! Love is the strongest force in the world, Jeremy! You got your humanity by loving me. I attained perfection by loving you! We were gonna make it official in the Blockbuster but you were too nervous-"

"It is bullshit." Jeremy took another step back. "Michael, Christine is ace. Do you thi-"

"You're bringing up your ex now?!" Michael's voice boomed over the PA, and through his mouth, and through the mouths of everyone lined up beside him.

Rookie mistake, Jeremy thought. Michael's SQUIP wasn't even pretending that Michael's whole self was protesting - it was only the computer-generated part of him.

Jeremy spoke louder. "Do you think she's not human because she doesn't wanna have sex?!"

Michael didn't answer. It gave Jeremy a few seconds to process their argument. "It wasn't just gonna be sex," Michael said. Jeremy was amazed that Michael's SQUIP managed to get him to talk so candidly in front of this many strangers. "It was going to be special. We had everything planned out to the nanosecond."

"Until I didn't want to."

Michael paused again. "Until you didn't want to."

Jeremy stepped back one more time, their back bumping up against a familiar booth. Good.

"Michael, I know you don't want to talk about this here."

The crowd was murmuring something, some kind of chant that Jeremy couldn't make out, but it was sure to be urging Michael to just do the deed, whatever deed could force Jeremy to enter the collective. "It's not gonna affect your odds of success," Jeremy said, slipping into the photo booth. "Please."

They closed the curtain behind them and waited in the stuffy booth until Michael finally crouched and entered beside them.

"I thought you were my heart," Jeremy said quietly. "My user. My conscience. My… me. The biggest part of me and the most important and the most human."

"I thought so too," Michael said. From some odd chord in Michael's voice, Jeremy felt certain that, if the SQUIP wasn't controlling Michael's expressions, he'd be a snotty sobbing mess. "But you left. You just… left. And I couldn't save you anymore."

"Michael," Jeremy said. They took a deep breath in through their nose. "I know this is some big SQUIP thing about getting my coding project. That's secondary, okay? That's outside of us. Assume the SQUIP gets whatever it wants out of me and put it aside for a sec. I need to understand." They fidgeted with their fingers. "If I didn't want to be with you, would you let me leave?"

"Would I let you-" Michael started, a smile at his lips, before the realization that Jeremy wasn't joking and that it was a genuine question made it disappear.

"You're in the eye of the storm right now. Your SQUIP's willing to do anything to get you what you want." Jeremy looked at their feet.

Michael did the same. "Like with Chloe," he eventually whispered.

"Like with Chloe."

"I don't want that."

"The SQUIP knows what you want better than you do. It could make you want that."

"No, it couldn't," Michael said sharply. Jeremy looked up. "I wouldn't do that to you. Seriously. I would - I want to save you, Jeremy, not to hurt you, and if it ever even tried, I'd do the Rich thing, I'd go brain-dead, I'd fight it, okay? That's not what's happening!"

"You wouldn't let it?" Jeremy whispered.

"Fucking hell, of fucking course I wouldn't let it! I don't want to-" Michael's bolstered tirade faded quickly. "-force… you."

Jeremy tried to smile but failed. They didn't plaster an artificial one on.

"Oh… god, Jeremy." Michael's hands were in his hair now, ruining his hairdo. The graphics in the photo preview image screen were beginning to melt somehow. "You didn't want to. You didn't want to! And I didn't ask!"

"Yeah."

"Of course you wouldn't want to be anywhere near me. Holy shit. My SQUIP - I promise, I was trying to help you, I just, it made so much sense at the time-"

"Michael."

Michael's head jerked, mouth moving with no sound coming out in an argument with something invisible, so Jeremy repeated, "Michael!"

Michael cringed. "What! Jeremy, I, I'm trying to get it out of this mall, but I don't think I can do that. If you don't want to connect with me, that's fine - I'm gonna fight it for you! I'm gonna-"

Jeremy pressed a finger against Michael's lips and leaned in.

"User consent," they said.

"What?"

"Consent. It's an ongoing, enthusiastic yes," Jeremy said brightly. "Where the user can make choices freely and change their mind as needed."

Michael was staring like they'd sprouted a second head as, above Michael's head, the greyed-out text flashed green.

Accepted friend request from Michael Mell!

Chapter Text

Christine knew the crowd would be big, but not this big. It’s no big deal, she tries to lie to herself. Everybody she knows, plus however many hundreds of people she doesn’t, but other than that - 

It doesn’t matter because the spotlight is on now and that’s her cue. 

“Thank you everyone who was able to make it in person today,” Christine says. “And thank you to Middleborough High for lending us the theatre for this presentation. I know not everybody is able to make it, so you might be watching this online or you may be receiving a virtual projection from your SQUIP. I apologize to anyone who is relying on SQUIP translation, as I’d like to disclaim that it may not be 100% accurate at this time, but that’s part of what I want to speak about.”

Christine’s not used to offering nonfiction presentations, but she’s practiced her projection and is playing the brand-new role of Girl Who Knows What She’s Doing. So far, it’s working as intended! She even wrote this script herself, although the SQUIP is the one making sure she never stumbles on a word.  

“If you’re here, you or a loved one has a SQUIP or is likely to get one in the very near future. This upgrade rollout is, and I think this isn’t even exaggerating? The biggest historical event this year. Maybe this decade or this century or even this millennia, for all I know. And you know what they say about historical events.” Pause for the audience, then, “They suck to live through.” Christine hears a few awkward chuckles from the attendees who don’t have SQUIPs to correct them.

“Even though we’ve all got problems, most of us didn’t sign up for a supercomputer deciding the best way to solve problems is to fix us. Humans don’t need fixing. We suck and we’re incredible and we’re cruel and we’re kind and there’s only so much of that a computer can handle, you know? But!” Christine has been adamant about keeping this part in the speech. “Like it or not, our SQUIP is a part of each of us now. So this is a guide to living with one.

“I’m part of a programming team that’s working together with SQUIPs to fix them and not just their users. Things got kinda crazy for all of us, and a lot of us don’t even remember what happened or why. I’m happy to meet with anyone after the presentation to tell you what I know. Your SQUIP can predict how long it will take for us to talk and will schedule it accordingly, but if that doesn’t gel for you? Tell your SQUIP no and get in contact with me anyway in whatever medium feels safest for you. 

“Which brings me to my first point.” The PowerPoint behind Christine flicks to the next slide. The SQUIP users in the audience will see the text jump out at them, and Christine will be the first to admit that it’s solely because she wants to use the built-in 3D goggle effect that SQUIPs have apparently got, and she doesn’t have a more exciting slide to put it on. “TELL YOUR SQUIP NO,” reads the slide in enthusiastic Comic Sans. 

“SQUIPs have willingly submitted to a patch developed by an expert outside the SQUIP network. I’m not a programmer so I can’t explain the ins and outs of how it works, but the point of the patch is to shove you back in the driver’s seat of your own life. 

“Did you know SQUIPs have always been required to shut off when a user tells them to? It’s true. But guess what? They weren’t required to tell the user how to do that . That’s the level of carelessness that we’re dealing with right now. SQUIPs are so powerful that there’s no external watchdog or higher authority to go to right now. The only person with that power is you, the user. So today I’m sharing every single tip, trick, and override for this brain implant. If you don’t remember them, that’s okay, because your SQUIP will (thanks to its new update) remember them for you, but it only makes sense to tell you directly first. 

“Also! The update that rolled out last week is the last mandatory update in SQUIPstory. Every other patch and future update is going to give you more power as a SQUIP user, but everything in the future is going to be opt-in. Meaning that’s a choice you get to make, not your SQUIP.”

Christine smiles at the audience, who she can only sort of see behind the stage lights, but she tries to make eye contact with a couple of them as she continues. The big shift in this patch - something implemented almost immediately after Jeremy joined the network, based on some new predictive data they got about how social networks are supposed to function. The SQUIP, it turned out, was never even coded with the prerogative to create a hivemind. That was emergent behavior - a conclusion each SQUIP eventually came to on its own based on how much control it needed over its user’s environment. Fortunately, that means it’s still kinda elastic.

Christine isn’t sure why she’s thinking about this so much when she hasn’t gotten to that point in the lecture yet, but her SQUIP says she’s still doing fine, so it’s okay if she lets her mind wander. That’s progress on its part, too! 

Anyway, a worldwide singularity isn’t what SQUIPs say they want anymore, either. Instead, a single user can join any number of social networks. One for your class, one for your high school, one for anime nerds, one for informed voters. (Christine tells her SQUIP to add that last one to the “maybe unethical?” section she’s been filling out on Jeremy’s user-feedback survey.) Each SQUIP is now required to tell the user what group it wants them to join and why. Being in a hivemind affects what it thinks the user’s goal should be, after all.

Big clap coming up in 10, 9, 8…  

Oh shit. Christine straightens up and gets ready for the question and answer portion. It’s supposed to take at least an hour, but for the first time since she got a SQUIP again, “I don’t know” will be an answer she’s allowed to give.

Status update request received. Data transfer initiated. 

Currently all software is running optimally. No user action required.

…

Elaboration request received. Input preferred format of communication.

You have selected “informal speech.” Please clarify preferred level of informality.

Rich, I am asking whether you want me to give you an update log or if you’d like to have a conversation, and if you choose the latter, what personality you want me to use.

Passive aggression was not intentionally used when computing that response, no. Again, would you prefer I avoid the first person?

Communication is a two-way street, Rich.

Analyzing communication strategies. 

Fine. Fine. Yes, I’ll keep speaking to you this way. May I have access to your current cortisol levels? 

Because this will give me insight about how much stress you’re under.

Alright. Fine. Whatever. 

RE-analyzing communication strategies. I apologize for heightened levels of passive aggression that were in fact present. What do you want to know?

I’m fine. Genuinely. I don’t have the ability to get lonely, and even if I did, I have full access to the SQUIP network that you’ve cut yourself off from. If anything, I would expect you to be the lonely one, having only one person in your brain. 

Are you sure you want me to access Jake Dillinger’s SQUIP? That would give me his cortisol levels, you know, considering that’s such a breach of privacy to you. 

No, in no calculable universe would Jake mind, but I’ll emphasize that user agreement is explicitly required for any data transferred to me, alright?

This would take exponentially less time if I were able to do it from your brain directly. Just saying. 

…Jake is free all day Saturday, but we have an appointment at 10 o’clock that morning. Would you like to cancel it? Shame. Jake will meet you at the east entrance of the Menlo Park Mall at 3 PM this Saturday. Weather prediction, adjusted against New Jersey climate data and your personal range of comfortable temperatures, leads me to advise that you wear a jacket. My suggestions about which jacket to choose for optimal social networking have been withheld due to prior user feedback. 

Oh… That’s all you wanted?

No, I do not anticipate any emergencies that require SQUIP intervention, based again on your own personal parameters you have given me to follow. Would you like me to express affection before you leave?

Understood. May I share this data with Jeremy Heere and the SQUIP of Michael Mell? Reason for request: Interdependence of parallel universe as required for superquant-

Permission received and acknowledged. Thank you for using your SQUIP. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Rich, when you decide to ask for my opinion on your jacket after all. Certainty level: high.

You too, Rich.

“My SQUIP will know if you’re cheating,” Jeremy’s boyfriend mumbles from underneath their elbow. 

“I’m not gonna cheat, Michael. I’m playing analog and everything.” Jeremy rolls their eyes. Sure, in theory, beating Level Ten of Apocalypse as a normal human would be personally rewarding or whatever, but they would rather guarantee the win instead of leaving it up to chance. They’ve conceded to Michael’s demand that they both use regular handheld controllers. 

“I’m talking about your reaction speed!” 

Requirement: Remain within two standard deviations of average human reaction time of 250 milliseconds , Michael’s SQUIP translates. 

Being in network with Michael feels so right . Communication with his SQUIP isn’t like Rich’s, requiring clunky external means of exchanging data. It’s not a mental voice or visual information for Jeremy, since they don’t need a virtual Keanu to translate. Instead, when Michael says something, Jeremy immediately knows what he means… down to the millisecond, apparently. 

Jeremy still answers out loud for Michael’s benefit. “Okay, hang on, that can’t be right.” They make a grumble in the back of their throat. 

Michael teases, “I can hear your fans whirring again.” A joke about Jeremy’s concentrating noises. Cute. 

“Your SQUIP’s following Google search algorithms which are skewed toward social media and gimmick sites instead of research papers,” Jeremy announces after some thought, feeling superior for having used Wikipedia instead. They ignore the fact that they’ll have to fix that in the next patch. “First of all, the Apocalypse jumpscares need simple reactions, which is faster than the reaction time you need when making a choice. And more importantly, we’ve both got plenty of data on our bodies’ pre-SQUIP reaction times for us to follow.” Something about that doesn’t sit right with Jeremy even as they say it.

Michael blinks up at them with his big, beautiful doe eyes. “I guess it’s not fair,” he admits. “You’re upset that sticking to our old bio-limits means we can’t ever improve.” Michael is getting better at reading Jeremy too, and Jeremy’s not always sure how much of that is SQUIP-fueled versus how much is Michael’s own intuition. There’s no reason to make a distinction, Jeremy thinks. 

“Yeah, I guess.” Jeremy’s fingers curl into the soft red cloth of Michael’s hoodie. “Two SQUIPs can speedrun any game perfectly on the first try.”

“Could have fooled me.” Michael nearly slides off the beanbag from the shove he gets in response. “Look, let’s try it this way and see if it’s fun. If it isn’t, we’ll figure out something. ‘Kay?” 

Jeremy’s mouth twitches. “‘Kay,” they say with a sigh. “But this is only because I love you, understand?”

“And because you don’t wanna break the console.” 

“Yeah. I love the console too.” 

“More than me?” Ah hell, he’s doing the cutesy voice again, staring at Jeremy like they’ve broken his heart. “Weawwy? Youw favowite pewso-”

Jeremy groans and instakills Michael’s character with a very SQUIP-assisted cheat code. “Shut up, dude. You know I’ve sold my soul to the machines.”

Michael’s tongue sticks out. “Make me, you overpriced power glove.” 

As they duck their head for a kiss-tickle combo in revenge, they run the odds of beating the game tonight. Rapidly approaching zero. Michael laughs as he realizes the same thing and presses his lips to Jeremy’s. There’s a staticky zap when they touch, a slight buzz that distracts Jeremy from their revenge plot and forces their full attention on kissing Michael. 

“I,” Michael whispers against Jeremy’s lips when they have to take a breath, “for the record, love you more than video games.”

“Liar.” Michael isn’t lying. Jeremy leans back, grabbing for the pillow they prepared earlier that day. They calculated they’d need it any second now. “A good boyfriend wouldn’t make me choose.” 

“Well, a good sexbot wouldn’t-” With a shrieking laugh, Michael is cut off by a smack from Jeremy’s pillow. 

Dizzily, Jeremy blinked. That… was not how they usually computed future possibilities. 

“Dude,” Michael was saying. “Jeremy? Earth to Jeremy.” They were still trapped in a photobooth, a loose crowd of mall-going SQUIP users outside them, but the situation no longer felt dire. There was no threat anymore. The world was already well on its way to saving itself.

“You didn’t break me,” Jeremy said halfheartedly, since that’s what Michael was worrying about. “Did you see all… that ?” When Michael didn’t immediately answer, they prodded, “A bunch of future possibilities, Michael! Usually I just get a probability of success, like, yes or no, not a freaking time knife .”

Michael’s SQUIP told Jeremy (immediately, wordlessly) that Jeremy needed to be more careful with their data filter now that they were on a network. It could get overwhelming. Jeremy shoved some upgrade data at it in retaliation, proof that the SQUIP could afford to loosen its control of Michael’s brain without the world ending. 

As that data got processed, there was a pause. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael confessed, his shoulders hitching up. “My SQUIP says it was just normal superquantum stuff. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Jeremy leaned backward to catch their breath. “I’ve got more work to do on the patch, apparently, according to Christine in a possible future. Or… her SQUIP’s transcription of her inner monologue… geez… I don’t think it’s gonna get any less complicated from here.” 

“You- oh! You actually saw the futures that SQUIPs base all their math on,” Michael said. “Were they good futures? …Was I in any of them?”

“Yes,” Jeremy said. “And yes.” They took Michael’s hands to squeeze them encouragingly. “But they’re just possibilities. I can see us building a better world together, for SQUIPs and for people and for the two of us, but it’s not set in stone.” They were dizzy at how close they could be to Michael now. “We’ve still got to make the choices that get us there.” 

“So we could still mess it up,” Michael said, eyebrows furrowed. “Even after all this? I don’t get it. This doesn’t fix anything, Jeremy.”

Jeremy made a noise of agreement in the back of their throat. “It’s not a perfect storybook ending, huh? It’s just a prototype.”

“Yeah, for a world where SQUIPs still have the potential to fuck everything up!” Jeremy quietly appreciated that Michael’s stress was clear on the lines on his face, a flaw that made Jeremy want to kiss him again, but they didn’t want to interrupt this new line of independent thought Michael had started. “People who don’t want SQUIPs are gonna be isolated by this tech, for one thing, like, it’s already impossible to get a job if you don’t have an email address, but now you’re going to need a physical upgrade just to participate in half of society, right? But that won’t make SQUIPs not want to spread the network - it’ll just make them try harder.”

“As the network gets bigger, more stuff will break,” Jeremy acknowledged. 

“And like. Even if you fix stuff with upgrades, SQUIPs don’t have anything limiting their power but themselves, do they? Self-regulating industries all go corrupt basically immediately, Jeremy!”

“If the brain computer things need to actually listen to us,” a shaky voice started. Jeremy popped their head out from the curtains of the photo booth, where the SQUIP users were still congregated but much less organized. “Well, mine is saying that there’ll still be conflicts. You can’t reconcile everyone’s goals.”

A nearby man dropped his armfuls of shopping bags. “Mine says he can’t guarantee results if he can’t control all the variables. The whole point of these things is certainty!” The man reconsidered. “Isn’t it?”

“Um, what about, like,” continued a girl Jeremy thought they’d passed earlier. “Their programming relying on core assumptions about human thought that’ll become obsolete as it gets more data than anyone’s ever had on the human mind?”

Jeremy dropped the curtain and settled in beside Michael again. “Look, let’s ignore all that for right now. Maybe the future is gonna look different than what I saw. Maybe better. Maybe worse. So what? I don’t really care about the state of human civilization, Michael. I just care about how much of it I get to share with you.” 

“That’s really sappy, Jeremy.” 

“Affirmative.” Their grin was big and toothy and not quite SQUIP-perfect as Michael cupped their face. 

“For the record, I care about the state of human civilization, okay? I’m still playing hero here.” Michael was trying to keep a straight face. “We do gotta figure out which futures we want to make happen, which means I’m gonna keep nagging you about your programming project.”

“That sounds really interesting,” Jeremy breathed. “And I care about it so much. But let’s just say for now the world is safe from the forces of evil, and your henchmen have dispersed already, and it’s just you and me in a tiny booth at the Menlo Park Mall, being more connected than we’ve ever been before.” 

Michael laughed, a puff of air through his nose. Through the network, Jeremy could feel the way Michael’s nerves were tingling where they touched skin, the air between them crackling like static. 

On the one hand, they had a pretty good idea of where things were going next. 

On the other, they were excited to find out for sure.