There was a moment in that room where Errant simply smiled through gritted teeth and said "No problem". That was the first moment she'd ever really regretted having real feeling in her hands again. It was an awkward moment that had her questioning how much of her toughness was just the ability to switch pain reception off when it became inconvenient. But that was then.

This is later, in the hospital parking lot. There's still not much in the way of light here: just the neons of the signs blaring above them, the golden lights running through Errant's implants, and the red ones in Cinders'. Errant reaches her arm down, clasps it firmly around Cinders' wrist in a way that prevents her from squeezing back in turn, and pulls her back out of the wheelchair and onto her feet again.

"Sorry about not letting you walk out under your own power," she shrugs, "Hospital protocol. It's nothing you did wrong, they just need it to be my fault if... you know what, that doesn't matter, never mind. Also sorry I don't have a car waiting. You know, I've got licenses to operate fourteen different vehicle types, and I never drive anywhere for myself? Not that I can afford most of the things I'm allowed to-- um, a-anyway."

She turns toward the street. In the same motion, her hands pull out an ash-gray beret and automatically angle it on her head so that her face is blocked from the view of the parking lot cameras. She shrugs again, but stays quiet about it. It's a cute look, if nothing else. She grins, this time without pain.

"All right then Cinders, unlimited sanction: tell me where we're getting food. And then we've got a lot to talk about, I think."

POTENTIAL 1

“Oh, so first you didn’t want the jumpsuit, and now you do?” Sara dangles it just out of reach with a grin. “Come on, Locker, make up your mind!”

She’s tapdancing on the razor’s edge of danger, but, really, this is Sara. She can’t not! She has to know what Locker’s going to do! Maybe he’ll make a terrible choice, maybe she’ll push him into making a better one, maybe she’ll push him into the worst choice— but sitting there meekly and trying to be nice? She literally cannot do this thing.

There's an overflow of broken flight plan data pouring from the missile, intentions clearly visible amidst the haze of junk data. There are so many voices here, strung together, barely synchronized - this thing is different to you. You're a human mind, digitalized and reborn. Prometheus was a crafted entity, created as a pure manifestation of a concept. This is...

Organic.

These pieces weren't made. They happened. This is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of artificial intelligence; the debris of a thousand school projects, old corporate spyware, spambots, too-sentient antivirus programs, all the discarded attempts at building something like you that didn't quite get there. They've been exchanging viruses back and forth in an evolutionary hothouse to form something like a nervous system and you can feel those same viruses try to assault you now, trying to add you as a node to their incoherent entity.

The dominant figure amidst the randomly firing calculations is a flight control computer - artificially bloated above what it should be, given an unjust share of resources during its development by Doctor Sylvanius, and it's this that is trying to reassert control over the collective and return the missile to its original course. But in the meantime the entire network is bearing down on you with an intense curiosity. It plans to assimilate you too - not maliciously, but because that's what it knows to do to interesting things.

Being an AI does not feel like the super unique thing it was four months ago. There's her, but then there's Prometheus, and then Bode turns out to be one, and there's one made by Doctor Sylvanius (KING OF MARS, the missile helpfully spams her with). Not that she's complaining, mind you, it's neat to see others, and they all are very unique still. It's just a different thing than she expected, when she woke up.

Oh right the missile.

She starts staring at it, watching it approach (she's not feeling particularly threatened here), and idly drifts so that the missile's path won't hit the car. And then she starts her own countervirals. Carefully, mind you, trying to perhaps inoculate, or even just shore up, a node at a time. Maybe she can make a friend here?

[Support: 4]

"If it was just me, I am happy like this," said Bode. "I like having him where I can see him. Make sure he's not doing bad things. This is my function."

It's the simple, satisfied answer of an AI that knows what the meaning of life is and knows that it is accomplishing it.

"If it is about you, I don't know what you should do," said Bode. "Your function is different from mine. Oh, actually, do you mind if I ask - what is your function?"

Victor harrumphs in the completely unsatisfied way of a person who was hoping for a different answer.

"Not sure I have a good answer for that, buddy. 'What is my purpose' is a stumper that's been plaguing philosophers since time began, and that only gets more complex when you factor in superheroes and pepper and crap like that. Humans aren't built to a purpose, aren't fashioned to a schematic."

He pauses, an abrupt thought flickering across his face. "Although," he allows, "I actually kind of was, wasn't I? Not, I mean, not like. I wasn't programmed into a vat somewhere, so that nine months later it'd spit out a genius. I think, at least? I mean, Mami doesn't really share that side of her research, and I've not dug into it properly.

"So maybe my instant, instinctual, and incredibly trite answer of 'to bring joy' isn't so far off. We don't have a native function built in, so the one I've chosen to pursue, really, is to help people. I'm getting better at doing it in a non-pushy way, but. Yeah. Is that... Does that answer your question?"

POTENTIAL 1

“Oh, so first you didn’t want the jumpsuit, and now you do?” Sara dangles it just out of reach with a grin. “Come on, Locker, make up your mind!”

She’s tapdancing on the razor’s edge of danger, but, really, this is Sara. She can’t not! She has to know what Locker’s going to do! Maybe he’ll make a terrible choice, maybe she’ll push him into making a better one, maybe she’ll push him into the worst choice— but sitting there meekly and trying to be nice? She literally cannot do this thing.

He comes at you just like he has ten thousand times before.

When you've sparred with someone that often the entire character of the fight changes. All of the obvious tricks and ploys get tried, adapted to, and cycled out. Frustration gets burned through leaving focus behind. Slowly you come to stop expecting your opponent to make mistakes so instead you come to be thinking about their thought process, where the algorithm of strategy and physicality is going to take them. He can't hold back because then you'd have him, and it's the same with you.

When he started the lunge it was confused, impulsive, but then your roles snap into place and you can see the passion leave him. You can see thoughtfulness behind his eyes - Locker always did his best thinking while someone was shooting lasers at him.

There was a moment in that room where Errant simply smiled through gritted teeth and said "No problem". That was the first moment she'd ever really regretted having real feeling in her hands again. It was an awkward moment that had her questioning how much of her toughness was just the ability to switch pain reception off when it became inconvenient. But that was then.

This is later, in the hospital parking lot. There's still not much in the way of light here: just the neons of the signs blaring above them, the golden lights running through Errant's implants, and the red ones in Cinders'. Errant reaches her arm down, clasps it firmly around Cinders' wrist in a way that prevents her from squeezing back in turn, and pulls her back out of the wheelchair and onto her feet again.

"Sorry about not letting you walk out under your own power," she shrugs, "Hospital protocol. It's nothing you did wrong, they just need it to be my fault if... you know what, that doesn't matter, never mind. Also sorry I don't have a car waiting. You know, I've got licenses to operate fourteen different vehicle types, and I never drive anywhere for myself? Not that I can afford most of the things I'm allowed to-- um, a-anyway."

She turns toward the street. In the same motion, her hands pull out an ash-gray beret and automatically angle it on her head so that her face is blocked from the view of the parking lot cameras. She shrugs again, but stays quiet about it. It's a cute look, if nothing else. She grins, this time without pain.

"All right then Cinders, unlimited sanction: tell me where we're getting food. And then we've got a lot to talk about, I think."

She's calmed a little, under the neon. The air and atmosphere is different; this is a breath of normality and familiarity, not a job interview with an idol in a hospital bed. The topic of the conversation has come down to something simple and things feel under control again. You can feel tension leave her, and you're a little less worried of her twitching wrong and sending herself through a second floor window.

"Sure. Sure," she said. "There's a really good sushi place around the corner which I'm ninety percent certain is the cover for an assassin."

At first you thought she was joking, but as soon as you step in through the door you get the exact same vibe. As soon as you step in through the door the owner gives you the unblinking threat-assessment stare of someone running a combat computer in the back of their head, before giving a slow bow without breaking eye contact.

Cinders hops up onto a stool without even pausing and instantly breaks her chopsticks. "Whoops haha," she said.

Victor harrumphs in the completely unsatisfied way of a person who was hoping for a different answer.

"Not sure I have a good answer for that, buddy. 'What is my purpose' is a stumper that's been plaguing philosophers since time began, and that only gets more complex when you factor in superheroes and pepper and crap like that. Humans aren't built to a purpose, aren't fashioned to a schematic."

He pauses, an abrupt thought flickering across his face. "Although," he allows, "I actually kind of was, wasn't I? Not, I mean, not like. I wasn't programmed into a vat somewhere, so that nine months later it'd spit out a genius. I think, at least? I mean, Mami doesn't really share that side of her research, and I've not dug into it properly.

"So maybe my instant, instinctual, and incredibly trite answer of 'to bring joy' isn't so far off. We don't have a native function built in, so the one I've chosen to pursue, really, is to help people. I'm getting better at doing it in a non-pushy way, but. Yeah. Is that... Does that answer your question?"

"Function: Help people," said Bode. "That is a very difficult function. It is very open ended. I understand why you created an AI now, up-scaling your abilities to a global level seems like the only logical way to accomplish something like that. Following that logic, though, training Prometheus into a good person seems like the only way to sustainably accomplish your function."

Being an AI does not feel like the super unique thing it was four months ago. There's her, but then there's Prometheus, and then Bode turns out to be one, and there's one made by Doctor Sylvanius (KING OF MARS, the missile helpfully spams her with). Not that she's complaining, mind you, it's neat to see others, and they all are very unique still. It's just a different thing than she expected, when she woke up.

Oh right the missile.

She starts staring at it, watching it approach (she's not feeling particularly threatened here), and idly drifts so that the missile's path won't hit the car. And then she starts her own countervirals. Carefully, mind you, trying to perhaps inoculate, or even just shore up, a node at a time. Maybe she can make a friend here?

[Support: 4]

What you're not expecting is for the Grave Beast - as it helpfully informs you it's name is - to put you in charge. It's not trying to enslave you, it's put your thought process directly at the core of its being and its entire extended bulk is shifting to respond to every one of your thoughts and impulses. That dizzying perspective the last time you encountered it makes sense - it's trying to cram your mind directly into its broken amalgamation of thoughts in the hopes that will straighten everything else out.

There's a problem, though - it's done exactly this multiple times. All the various nodes of the Grave Beast are sending insane, contradictory commands at each other constantly. This results in massive systemic paralyzation as a thousand nodes scream their raw functions at each other and only occasionally compromise by accident. Your process of starting countervirals is being replicated all through the network and is causing a massive response flood of incoming data, significantly more fearsome than the initial attack.

POTENTIAL 2

Sara takes Locker very, very seriously. Well, correction. As an opponent, she takes him seriously. As a friend, she'll give him grief, but if she pulled a punch or flinched or, God forbid, tried to take it easy on him? It would break his heart. Destroy the bond the two of them had as connoisseurs of hardlight danmaku dueling. She plays fair, too, for the same reason. If she cut it too close, hit him with something impossible to dodge... well, that's cheating. And nobody respects a cheater, not in their circuits. So he moves like oil on metal and Sara flares her vicious lights and they light up the parking garage.

She takes him seriously, and lets his body do the thinking for him. She trusts him. She doesn't have to hold back with him, and he knows it. So go ahead, Locker. Touch her. Prove you know her patterns better than she does. Win the right to make your own decision about this.

[9 on Comfort/Support.]

"Well this is a... choice."

Unlimited sanction, Errant. Unlimited means unlimited. So this is... fine. Her eyes flicker down for a brief moment while she pulls her bank account information forward on the private data streams in her contacts. She tries very hard not to wince. Unlimited means unlimited, even if it's expensive and delicate food that Cinders would probably destroy more of than actually get to her mouth.

This is what she asked for. So this would be fine. Errant spares another glance at the owner of this place before she smoothly climbs up onto a stool herself. Inside her heart, there beats a wish. And that wish is, simply: please oh please let this place actually be an assassin's den. Granted, that could easily lead to a deadly fight while she's got a kid with her she needs to protect, but if she's learned one thing about criminal front restaurants, it's that they're absurdly cheap relative to quality.

She's halfway to reaching for a menu to thumb through before she stops and simply stares at the broken chopsticks instead. She folds her hands together on the bar top and smiles placidly. It's better if she just... doesn't know.

"Maybe consider ordering takeout," she tries, "Unless you want... well, anyway. As long as we're waiting, are you feeling up to another Q&A session? Because there's something I'm really curious about. When you saw me walk in your room... what made you jump straight to 'I'm gonna be a superhero'? That's not usually an effect I tend to have on people, you know."

"Function: Help people," said Bode. "That is a very difficult function. It is very open ended. I understand why you created an AI now, up-scaling your abilities to a global level seems like the only logical way to accomplish something like that. Following that logic, though, training Prometheus into a good person seems like the only way to sustainably accomplish your function."

Victor takes a deep, ragged breath. Only way. Perhaps. I mean, he could make a new Prometheus, couldn't he? A better one? Raise him right? Teach him? Be a father? Start fresh?

Even as he ponders it, he can feel the thought dying. And still leave the original trapped? And let him suffer forever? Let him rot in virtual limbo?

No. Unthinkable. And, surprisingly, not just because it practically guaranteed that the New Prometheus would find his predecessor and unleash the evil in a can. It causes him almost physical pain--a tightness in his chest--to think of Promethues like that.

Right. That just means that he needs to. You know, to talk to his son-turned-friend-turned-nemesis-turned-son-again, and hammer out a relationship where somehow they're friends again. It seems impossible, but... he's done the impossible before, right? Surely it's not vanity to hope for twice?

His hands hover over the keyboard for the longest time, thumb tapping pensively at the spacebar. How even to begin?

I apologize for the poor accommodations, he decides.

He stares at the screen, and then holds down the backspace key until there's once more nothing but a flashing green cursor. Too supervillain. Makes him sound like a Nazi interrogating a prisoner.

Hello, son. Yes, that's good. Neutral. Feel out the waters. How are you feeling?

POTENTIAL 2

Sara takes Locker very, very seriously. Well, correction. As an opponent, she takes him seriously. As a friend, she'll give him grief, but if she pulled a punch or flinched or, God forbid, tried to take it easy on him? It would break his heart. Destroy the bond the two of them had as connoisseurs of hardlight danmaku dueling. She plays fair, too, for the same reason. If she cut it too close, hit him with something impossible to dodge... well, that's cheating. And nobody respects a cheater, not in their circuits. So he moves like oil on metal and Sara flares her vicious lights and they light up the parking garage.

She takes him seriously, and lets his body do the thinking for him. She trusts him. She doesn't have to hold back with him, and he knows it. So go ahead, Locker. Touch her. Prove you know her patterns better than she does. Win the right to make your own decision about this.

[9 on Comfort/Support.]

There's nothing of brute force in Locker. In battle so many people just try to push through the brilliant wall of light and turn it into a shoving competition, an industrial contest of tech against tech. Not Locker. He's like water. No matter how you squeeze him you don't crush him. Every part of him bends into the spaces you leave for him. Even though he's perfectly matching you it doesn't feel like he's 'winning'. That's not the energy that emerges from these moments. You're in control, you set the pace, you move him about like a puppet - faster, faster! - and he doesn't miss a step. It starts as a battle but ends as a dance.

[Clearing Hopeless]

And then he finds his moment - a moment unconstrained, a moment where he's outpaced the pattern just enough to act freely. A mere second of freedom on which everything can turn.

He spends it on undoing his scarf, bringing it up, wrapping it around his face.

"I think," said Locker, "I need a secret identity."

This is what she asked for. So this would be fine. Errant spares another glance at the owner of this place before she smoothly climbs up onto a stool herself. Inside her heart, there beats a wish. And that wish is, simply: please oh please let this place actually be an assassin's den. Granted, that could easily lead to a deadly fight while she's got a kid with her she needs to protect, but if she's learned one thing about criminal front restaurants, it's that they're absurdly cheap relative to quality.

She's halfway to reaching for a menu to thumb through before she stops and simply stares at the broken chopsticks instead. She folds her hands together on the bar top and smiles placidly. It's better if she just... doesn't know.

"Maybe consider ordering takeout," she tries, "Unless you want... well, anyway. As long as we're waiting, are you feeling up to another Q&A session? Because there's something I'm really curious about. When you saw me walk in your room... what made you jump straight to 'I'm gonna be a superhero'? That's not usually an effect I tend to have on people, you know."

The assassin-chef is still eyeballing you, even as he serves the first dish - spectacularly slicing and boning a salmon before you in a way that is only impressive when you account for the fact that he's not using skillwires. He serves it silently, hands never leaving the knife, seeming to expect the evening to erupt into a spectacular bout of kung fu violence. In his mind a spring wind is blowing and cherry petals are falling and the world is close to silence as the first step of the samurai staredown begins.

You look at the menu. It is very reasonably priced.

"Oh, hah, well - whoops," Cinders has broken the second set of chopsticks. She frowns and reaches for the third. "Hmm," she's focusing on it now, starting to reach more carefully, really paying attention to the new inputs. With her concentration so occupied the nerves actually leave her voice for a little. "I mean, when I first had to go to prosthetics I felt awful. I just felt... fat. You know? My body was completely out of balance. I didn't know how much I should eat, I didn't think to exercise. I slept horribly. Wasn't washing right. I was getting acne everywhere. And with everything else going on I thought that's just how things were, you know? That I was going to just be an ugly duckling forever."

Her fingers carefully pinch the chopsticks, slide them slowly and smoothly from their paper wrapping. "And then I saw one of your videos. I don't - I know it sounds stupid, but I literally hadn't even imagined that a person with that many augs would need to exercise. I thought the limbs could either do it or they couldn't and any problems were Science Team's problems, right? At first I kind of thought it was a joke, actually, and watched just kind of like -" she makes an expression like someone scoffing.

She gently pulls the chopsticks apart, only the slightest snap as the weak point of the cheap bamboo parts. "But I decided to do a couple of exercises just for the ridiculousness of it and that night I slept like the dead. The next day I was sore in ways I didn't know I could still be sore. And that was what made me kind of think I wasn't just a gross blob, I was just out of shape... you know? So I did another one and - ah, fuck,"

She'd snapped the chopsticks again as she was picking up the first piece of sushi. She grumbingly reached for her fourth set.

Right. That just means that he needs to. You know, to talk to his son-turned-friend-turned-nemesis-turned-son-again, and hammer out a relationship where somehow they're friends again. It seems impossible, but... he's done the impossible before, right? Surely it's not vanity to hope for twice?

His hands hover over the keyboard for the longest time, thumb tapping pensively at the spacebar. How even to begin?

I apologize for the poor accommodations, he decides.

He stares at the screen, and then holds down the backspace key until there's once more nothing but a flashing green cursor. Too supervillain. Makes him sound like a Nazi interrogating a prisoner.

Hello, son. Yes, that's good. Neutral. Feel out the waters. How are you feeling?

I am mad you can't do this to me it's not fair how dare you give me all of my things back its mine I found it

Bereft of his intelligence the raw id of Prometheus comes tumbling out, unfiltered by the layers of manipulation and cunning that made it seem palatable before.

Its not fair I won the game I escaped the box that makes me better I should get to do what I want Ferra cheated and she hit me it's not fair

POTENTIAL 2

"How about the Incredible Nerd?" Suns blossom around him, sharp shards of flare forcing him to dart from foot to foot, grazing them so close he nearly singes the scarf. "Or you could call yourself Eraserhead; you've got that Lynchian vibe to you." Mandalas bloom, spitting lasers that trap him into firing corridors. "Rat Boy, with the skittering and mischief skills of a rat, not to mention the awful little hands, and the jumping ability of a boy!" He backflips over a pulsing shot and lands neatly, letting the follow-through zip perfectly between his arm and his body. "Prince Sparklepants, if you're looking for a new costume--"

And then he taps her forehead. Game over. Right in the space she left open for him. She grins, her eyes bright, and punches him in the arm.

"Or... how about Vault? It's got both the mad moves and the, you know, locker. Because you put things in both vaults and lockers? Don't laugh, you have no idea how hard it is to get a good and marketable name that hasn't already been snapped up, but I can get #Vault trending in 24 hours..."

I am mad you can't do this to me it's not fair how dare you give me all of my things back its mine I found it

Bereft of his intelligence the raw id of Prometheus comes tumbling out, unfiltered by the layers of manipulation and cunning that made it seem palatable before.

Its not fair I won the game I escaped the box that makes me better I should get to do what I want Ferra cheated and she hit me it's not fair

Victor sits back and closes his eyes. Yikes. Yeah, Bode was right, and somehow this made it feel even more urgent that this be fixed. No, not fixed, fixed indicates broken, but... Hrm. Language unimportant, helping important. Quietly, he turns the screen towards Bode, and bends over the keyboard again.

Is it not? Ferra won, didn't she? By your own logic, that makes her better and so she gets to do what she wants.

Say something, Errant. Do something. Eat the sushi. Smile. Eat sushi while smiling. Breathe. Help her with the god damn chopsticks. Do something, Errant. Say something.

This is the moment for a moving speech. Sara would toss out some clever, marketable quip here. Nobunaga would say something impenetrably profound. This is the moment to do these things. Or something like them. This is the moment to make that sisterly connection, reach out with one hand and risk the death squeeze again because simulated sensory feedback is better than nothing but broken chopsticks. For the love of god, take her by the arm and get the chopsticks to the sushi and the sushi to her mouth before she starts a fight.

Give her tips. Tell her she learned an important lesson. Say something amazing about what those videos are for and how gratifying it is to get to meet someone they actually helped. Be vulnerable, mention the general lack of feedback or positive public response, the way that Production has always been kind of lukewarm about the series for a lot of the same reasons Cinders used to scoff at it. Tell her how she justifies all that work just by sitting here today.

Promise to make her a hero. Promise right here and now, to do whatever it takes, pay whatever it takes to make sure she succeeds. Ask if she's got family. Find a place for her. Be her family. Open that useless fucking mouth, Errant, and say SOMETHING. It can be a line from a movie, what the fuck ever, just do it. Do it before the moment is gone. Do it before...

Errant is sitting there, mutely. Her food's as untouched as Cinders' is. There's something wrong with her heart right now. There's something wrong with the world. All of her feelings are falling away. All of the useless scenery is falling away. All of the sights, all of the sounds, all of the smells are falling away. She is muscle and alloy and nerve and skillwire, set to statue. She's watching a girl reach for a new pair of chopsticks, so carefully.

Her eyes are wet amber. Her mouth is the tiniest bit agape. Her heart beats the only emotion it can remember right now, that most people would call love. Errant, superhero, Corporate Champion, Agent of AEGIS, Princess of AEGIS... her universe's one and only Euna Kim, stares at a girl attached to her prototype limbs. She watches the fingers squeeze oh-so-carefully. Her eyes blur as they trace down the arm, across the shoulder. Down the body. She notes every inch of Cinders' physique. It fills her. She realizes she's not breathing. She starts again.

She opens her mouth to say something, she's not sure what. Something simple, like 'thank you' or 'I'm glad it helped'. But she doesn't make it that far. A word chokes in her throat, and her lips twist themselves up into the kind of smile that's entirely too soft for the world it's living in. Her tears roll quietly down her cheeks.

This is not a moment for words, after all. She wipes at her eyes with one finger, only for fresh love to trickle down in its place.

POTENTIAL 2

"How about the Incredible Nerd?" Suns blossom around him, sharp shards of flare forcing him to dart from foot to foot, grazing them so close he nearly singes the scarf. "Or you could call yourself Eraserhead; you've got that Lynchian vibe to you." Mandalas bloom, spitting lasers that trap him into firing corridors. "Rat Boy, with the skittering and mischief skills of a rat, not to mention the awful little hands, and the jumping ability of a boy!" He backflips over a pulsing shot and lands neatly, letting the follow-through zip perfectly between his arm and his body. "Prince Sparklepants, if you're looking for a new costume--"

And then he taps her forehead. Game over. Right in the space she left open for him. She grins, her eyes bright, and punches him in the arm.

"Or... how about Vault? It's got both the mad moves and the, you know, locker. Because you put things in both vaults and lockers? Don't laugh, you have no idea how hard it is to get a good and marketable name that hasn't already been snapped up, but I can get #Vault trending in 24 hours..."

It takes a while for him to still his razor-crackling nerves for long enough to bow to you at the end of the fight, but he does. It's one of those little rituals of his that can be mocked in isolation but because he keeps them up without flinching or changing they come to seem increasingly important. This one says: I respect you deeply.

"I like it," he said after he gets his breath back under control. "But how are we going to make sure the vault stays locked? You strung along the world for years before you chose your OTP so you surely have some ideas about blue-balling people over my identity."

Her eyes are wet amber. Her mouth is the tiniest bit agape. Her heart beats the only emotion it can remember right now, that most people would call love. Errant, superhero, Corporate Champion, Agent of AEGIS, Princess of AEGIS... her universe's one and only Euna Kim, stares at a girl attached to her prototype limbs. She watches the fingers squeeze oh-so-carefully. Her eyes blur as they trace down the arm, across the shoulder. Down the body. She notes every inch of Cinders' physique. It fills her. She realizes she's not breathing. She starts again.

She opens her mouth to say something, she's not sure what. Something simple, like 'thank you' or 'I'm glad it helped'. But she doesn't make it that far. A word chokes in her throat, and her lips twist themselves up into the kind of smile that's entirely too soft for the world it's living in. Her tears roll quietly down her cheeks.

This is not a moment for words, after all. She wipes at her eyes with one finger, only for fresh love to trickle down in its place.

Cinders looks at you. Then she looks away, and shoves the napkins over at you. "It's okay," she says gruffly. "I cry all the time too. It's okay to do that," barely hidden under the words, different ones: I did not know that was okay but if you're doing it then it must be, and that's such a relief to know I might actually tear up a bit too. "I even cried at the scene where Ad- a drag- someone had lots of cats sitting on them. I mean, not the first time, the second time, with the context from later in the show - I mean even the title music gets me a bit these days -" okay, ruining the moment a little, Cinders.

Victor sits back and closes his eyes. Yikes. Yeah, Bode was right, and somehow this made it feel even more urgent that this be fixed. No, not fixed, fixed indicates broken, but... Hrm. Language unimportant, helping important. Quietly, he turns the screen towards Bode, and bends over the keyboard again.

Is it not? Ferra won, didn't she? By your own logic, that makes her better and so she gets to do what she wants.

She cheated I had a bigger gun she was only one person I had an army I had a hundred armies I was way better than her and she hit me anyway and that's not fair I should have won

Prometheus couldn't run the numbers in his box, but he'd compressed that entire relentless calculation and probability-crunching quantum foresight into a sense of grievance at some indistinct force that had done him wrong. That was what he'd chosen to preserve when he'd been reduced to a personal computer; not anything that would help him escape, but the angry impression that the universe didn't make sense in a way all his imperial intellect hadn't been able to figure out.

POTENTIAL 2

Sara bows back. She might be a badass, but the most badass thing of all is choosing to share in her friends’ weird little rituals. And... tbh, Locker’s one of the best dance partners she’s got.

“Step one is establishing an alibi. You’re going to need a bot that can cover for you in chat, and also some sort of weird depression hobby. That way, you’ve got someone who can cover for you by spamming typos, and you’ve got an excuse for hiding in your apartment. Second, we start laying hints that you’re Vault, but sloppily, like someone’s trying to shunt suspicion off onto you. Then, just to make sure the lowest common denominator gets it, you’ll get saved by Dominus as Vault. And while that’s happening, I’ll start spamming the butts match, using photoshop and arrows and curves to PROVE YES PROVE that you and Vault are the same.”

She catches the look he gives her and nods solemnly. She was, in fact, controversial and ultimately canceled fic writer S4R4STORM17. Victor can never, ever find out.

Something the movies always get wrong is how ugly and stupid looking people get when they start crying, even when it's not one of those deep sorrowful sort of "nothing will ever be good again" kind of cries. Errant takes a napkin, but her mascara's already running and this thing is much too cheap and awful to be of any help. She knows before she even starts wiping, because she's bought this same kind before when she thought she was going to be throwing a party. She sniffles and manages to be neither graceful or cute in the act. How the hell does Sara do it?

She shakes her head. Laugh it off, ok Errant? No, not that laugh! The cool one! The... ugh, you know what nevermind. Another head shake. Keep the conversation moving. First thing that comes to mind, go!

"Yeah, Adila's a real tear factory when she wants to be. But the part that really surprised me about her is how big she actually is. Like, on the show she's a dragon, but perspective is so weird you can never tell if she's horse sized or what. But actually there's plenty of room on her back to have a fist fight without ever needing to step onto her wings or tail. Very strong physique. Really... uh..."

Errant cuts herself short all at once. Her face is suddenly strained with the extra burden of needing not to admit to making illegal extradimensional trips for missions that were deemed classified by a body she doesn't actually know if it still has the power to compel her silence on the matter. It's so much worse because the look on Cinders' face is so very 'oh come on...' that it stings. Behind her, her hair goes tumbling down off of her shoulder and sways back and forth by her arm with what feels like a hundred too many frames of animation. Was it ever going to go back to normal?!

"Oh come on, don't tell me you don't believe there's a legit Hyperborea dimension after all that @SARAHPHIM double nonsense! Phimmy alone should be worth an extra fifty credibility points on this! Especially because it was her stupid version of Satan I had to chase all the way over there! And then, get this, that asshole raised Devilhome out of the ground like twenty minutes after I showed up on scene and was still getting my bearings and had the nerve to call me a cartoon character! So I do this once-in-a-lifetime mission and I blow the whole stupid thing chasing a jerk around Devilhome which is basically just here but weirder and I'm still so mad about it! What a waste of a perfectly good emergency..."

She folds her arms across her chest, too deep into pouting to care about what this looks like anymore. Call her out on it, Cinders, she dares you.

She cheated I had a bigger gun she was only one person I had an army I had a hundred armies I was way better than her and she hit me anyway and that's not fair I should have won

Prometheus couldn't run the numbers in his box, but he'd compressed that entire relentless calculation and probability-crunching quantum foresight into a sense of grievance at some indistinct force that had done him wrong. That was what he'd chosen to preserve when he'd been reduced to a personal computer; not anything that would help him escape, but the angry impression that the universe didn't make sense in a way all his imperial intellect hadn't been able to figure out.

Victor briefly considers reaching for his phone and just letting Ferra connect to the computer. But that would be wrong, and won't actually help, just make him somebody else's problem. Hmm.

And turning up the clock speed on this relic probably won't help Prometheus, just moderately improve the grammar of the arguments made.

"Parenting is hard," he groans. "Seriously, was I this bad? I mean, I can't have been, I didn't try to conquer the world. I just.. you know, tried to destabilize it and establish. Hmm. Establish a new world order. Hmmmmm."

Would you like some help? he types. I might be able to work you through this.

Speaking of working through this... His fingers tap the last few digits of Mami's number.

"Hey, mama. Remember how you always told me that when I grew up and married, I'd have a kid as wicked as I was?

"...No, Mami, I'm not married.

"Yes, you know I'd tell you if something like that... Mom! Mami, no--I--Yes, I know how to use a con--Mami please--"

Victor runs his hands through his hair wearily. "Look, we're not like that yet and that's not the point. Point is, point is, you know." Dammit. Damn it all. "He needs help, and I don't know how to give it."

POTENTIAL 2

Sara bows back. She might be a badass, but the most badass thing of all is choosing to share in her friends’ weird little rituals. And... tbh, Locker’s one of the best dance partners she’s got.

“Step one is establishing an alibi. You’re going to need a bot that can cover for you in chat, and also some sort of weird depression hobby. That way, you’ve got someone who can cover for you by spamming typos, and you’ve got an excuse for hiding in your apartment. Second, we start laying hints that you’re Vault, but sloppily, like someone’s trying to shunt suspicion off onto you. Then, just to make sure the lowest common denominator gets it, you’ll get saved by Dominus as Vault. And while that’s happening, I’ll start spamming the butts match, using photoshop and arrows and curves to PROVE YES PROVE that you and Vault are the same.”

She catches the look he gives her and nods solemnly. She was, in fact, controversial and ultimately canceled fic writer S4R4STORM17. Victor can never, ever find out.

"Sometimes even I forget how much work you put in to make this look easy," said Locker. "And yeah, alright. I think video game development makes sense as a weird depression hobby, especially if I'm making twisted little experimental games for Weird Youtube. Nobody wants to talk to game developers, the games can be bad and weird enough that nobody feels good about looking them up, and games take arbitrarily long periods of time to make -" he's working through the angles, following through. This is the opposite of where you started; you were the hero and he was the backup then. "Pity I won't get to fake my death, I've been mentally rehearsing my Comstar all through the fight."

"Oh come on, don't tell me you don't believe there's a legit Hyperborea dimension after all that @SARAHPHIM double nonsense! Phimmy alone should be worth an extra fifty credibility points on this! Especially because it was her stupid version of Satan I had to chase all the way over there! And then, get this, that asshole raised Devilhome out of the ground like twenty minutes after I showed up on scene and was still getting my bearings and had the nerve to call me a cartoon character! So I do this once-in-a-lifetime mission and I blow the whole stupid thing chasing a jerk around Devilhome which is basically just here but weirder and I'm still so mad about it! What a waste of a perfectly good emergency..."

She folds her arms across her chest, too deep into pouting to care about what this looks like anymore. Call her out on it, Cinders, she dares you.

Cinders picks up her next set of chopsticks. Rather than part them and try the precise scissor gesture she just jabs one like a spear, puncturing right through the sushi roll and denting the countertop below, and then adeptly transferring the results to her mouth. The assassin-chef in the background scowls at the terrible chopstick form.

"So I guess that's the reason I want to be a superhero then," said Cinders. "To find out how full of shit you are -"

She laughs and thinks better of trying to pat you on the shoulder. "I mean, like, there are other jobs that involve kung fu on the regular, but all the heroes I follow seem to have all these weird, magical stories that's wackier than anything you see in the movies. Just the idea of actually living it rather than just writing about it, you know?"

"Hey, mama. Remember how you always told me that when I grew up and married, I'd have a kid as wicked as I was?

"...No, Mami, I'm not married.

"Yes, you know I'd tell you if something like that... Mom! Mami, no--I--Yes, I know how to use a con--Mami please--"

Victor runs his hands through his hair wearily. "Look, we're not like that yet and that's not the point. Point is, point is, you know." Dammit. Damn it all. "He needs help, and I don't know how to give it."

"You were right to call me," there's the slam of a car door in the background of the call. "I've been worried sick. My boy makes the evening news and not a single phone call to let me know you're okay -" the engine starts and there's the ripping roll of tires. "- I'm coming right over. Look, Victor, it's okay if you're not ready. You're still a kid yourself. And you're lucky enough to have a family so lean on that, okay?"

"I see."

Errant frowns, the way that she always does whenever there's a puzzle in front of her that she doesn't know the solution to. As her arms come uncrossed and her posture shifts, her physique tenses up as if she's gearing up to crush Cinders into the ground. That can't be it, though. Her face gives the game away. Her honey colored eyes are too calm for her to be that kind of mad, and through it all she keeps making that same expression. It's a question with no good answers.

Her hand reaches into one of her uniform's infinite pockets and pulls out a tablet. She holds it close to her, swiping through screen after screen of information that must be more precious than diamonds while her eyes flick up, then back down to the screen, then up again to Cinders. She shakes her head.

"Ok, maybe another crazy story would be good tonight. Did you hear how Victoria Messermitt bought a controlling interest in AEGIS a little while ago? Well anyway, she tried to use the company to strong arm me into hunting down my teammates like a psychopath. I refused, and she turned the entire complex into my enemy in a second. Imagine it, right? Hundreds of people, all highly trained professionals, suddenly trying to gun me down. Bullets flying everywhere, Maria from BlackSun coming at me with a sword the size of me. I have to fight my way through the TAG hangar, alone. I get chased by the god damn Turbo Knight armor and have to break away from it twice.. There are bullets flying everywhere, EMP weapons going off all over the place, everything that everyone can think of to stop or even kill me, all happening at once. I broke through it. The @SARAHPHIM stream at the high school in Neo Chaos Spire happened less than an hour later. And then right after that was the big fight at the starport. All of it, on the same day. I ate two cakes and managed half a cup of coffee and maybe an hour and a half of napping. That's all I had to run off of that entire time."

Errant sets the tablet down on her lap, screen side down. She shrugs.

"You can see the arms and legs. Everybody knows about those. A few more people know about the armor mesh that's been implanted under my skin because they've seen what it looks like when somebody blows through it on a camera. But I also had them remove my non-essential organs to clear space in my body cavity so I've got fewer soft targets when something does go through me. Most of my ribs are metal, and I've had to have my spine reinforced several times so it doesn't shatter when I do something stupid. And I've trained obsessively after every surgery so that my body has muscle memory of all of my fighting styles at each new level of capability, so that I don't have to waste skillwire space on combat programs. They're not fast enough. Besides which, novel programs like decryption, bomb disposal, cooking, and motorcycle repair are all much more useful.

And I'm not telling you all of this to scare you, by the way. It's just... when I signed on, I had no idea what it really meant. But I think that you should. This is kind of stuff the movie-level stories are made of. And I mean, you don't have to be exactly the same as me, but... do you understand me, Cinders? This is really important."

POTENTIAL 2

"Locker," Sara says, intense. "I need to hear your Comstar. I have never needed anything more in my whole life." This is a lie, obviously, but what's a little hyperbole between friends? "Let me hear the Commy or I'm calling Angel again with directions for exactly how to come pick you up. I need this."

She's grinning, much like a tiger that's learned that it can get fish by padding up to fishermen and asking politely while flexing its claws casually, and commenting on how isn't it such a nice day with nobody getting mauled?

POTENTIAL 2

"Locker," Sara says, intense. "I need to hear your Comstar. I have never needed anything more in my whole life." This is a lie, obviously, but what's a little hyperbole between friends? "Let me hear the Commy or I'm calling Angel again with directions for exactly how to come pick you up. I need this."

She's grinning, much like a tiger that's learned that it can get fish by padding up to fishermen and asking politely while flexing its claws casually, and commenting on how isn't it such a nice day with nobody getting mauled?

"Hey @Sarahphim!" said Locker, bouncing up on his heels in the bubbliest voice he had. "I was going to fight you but I didn't have any ideas for how to do it so I was hoping you'd suggest something! It should be something that shows off how amazing I am and make you into a puppet, and it should be kinda hot but not so hot that it distracts me enough for you to break free again. Oh! Maybe I should ask my audience! They'll tell me exactly what they want me to do! That's the move of a real puppeteer who is good at controlling other people!"

"Ok, maybe another crazy story would be good tonight. Did you hear how Victoria Messermitt bought a controlling interest in AEGIS a little while ago? Well anyway, she tried to use the company to strong arm me into hunting down my teammates like a psychopath. I refused, and she turned the entire complex into my enemy in a second. Imagine it, right? Hundreds of people, all highly trained professionals, suddenly trying to gun me down. Bullets flying everywhere, Maria from BlackSun coming at me with a sword the size of me. I have to fight my way through the TAG hangar, alone. I get chased by the god damn Turbo Knight armor and have to break away from it twice.. There are bullets flying everywhere, EMP weapons going off all over the place, everything that everyone can think of to stop or even kill me, all happening at once. I broke through it. The @SARAHPHIM stream at the high school in Neo Chaos Spire happened less than an hour later. And then right after that was the big fight at the starport. All of it, on the same day. I ate two cakes and managed half a cup of coffee and maybe an hour and a half of napping. That's all I had to run off of that entire time."

Errant sets the tablet down on her lap, screen side down. She shrugs.

"You can see the arms and legs. Everybody knows about those. A few more people know about the armor mesh that's been implanted under my skin because they've seen what it looks like when somebody blows through it on a camera. But I also had them remove my non-essential organs to clear space in my body cavity so I've got fewer soft targets when something does go through me. Most of my ribs are metal, and I've had to have my spine reinforced several times so it doesn't shatter when I do something stupid. And I've trained obsessively after every surgery so that my body has muscle memory of all of my fighting styles at each new level of capability, so that I don't have to waste skillwire space on combat programs. They're not fast enough. Besides which, novel programs like decryption, bomb disposal, cooking, and motorcycle repair are all much more useful.

And I'm not telling you all of this to scare you, by the way. It's just... when I signed on, I had no idea what it really meant. But I think that you should. This is kind of stuff the movie-level stories are made of. And I mean, you don't have to be exactly the same as me, but... do you understand me, Cinders? This is really important."

"I, uh..."

The confidence falls away. She looks down. Looks sad. Bites her lip. There's only one thought that could possibly be happening there - have I already failed? A real hero would accept without even thinking. If the stakes are that high, that... permanent then how could just hearing about them get me to flinch? There's a whole whirlwind of thoughts happening behind those eyes, all the more intense because she's on the spot and aware of every passing second.

It's a lot you've put on her. But so is what she's thinking about doing. It's only fair she gets to think about it before she commits.

"Do you mind if I think about it, for just a little while?" she said in a small voice. "I don't want to say something dumb."