Notes: written to go with one of my alternate headcanons that involves Shinichi being a guy who wired himself into a computer. Warnings for it being kind of a body-horrorish squickfest involving a needle going into someone's spine.
The final step is naturally the hardest.
Not from a technological standpoint, of course. He's gone over the data, the plans, the calibrations, the fail-safes, multiple times now. Everything is perfectly lined up and waiting to go with only one simple thing standing in the way:
Human weakness.
His own weakness.
It's a simple thing really. All he has to do is sit still and allow his machines to do their work. Simulation after simulation has proven to him that this (should) will work and he's taking it slowly. Just one cable tonight. One cable tipped with its deadly looking needle, sterilized and waiting to be slipped between his vertebrae. Another test of sorts, a little bit more than a dry-run but not quite the full interfacing he has planned.
When there's still the chance of things going wrong it's best to start small. At this point in the plan his life will change very little if he accidentally paralyzes himself.
He shivers a little. The room is on the cold side, it's better for the servers that way, but that stopped bothering him long ago. No, this is nerves, plain and simple. A slick chill running up his spine at the thought of that needle sliding in, the base of the cable slightly hooked so it will catch his skin and won't easily slip loose. It honestly resembles a high-tech torture device.
And he'll be doing this to himself.
Human weakness, it's really the only thing giving him pause.
He double-checks everything again, although by this point it has gone far beyond simple double or even quadruple-checking and straight into avoidance tactics. Things are not going to get any more ready than they already are. He has marked out exactly where he needs to lie and how. Everything measured and re-measured.
There is really nothing to do but stop stalling and either go through with it, or give up on the whole thing completely. The first step is always the most difficult and if he can't do this….
If he can't do this then he's obviously not worthy of becoming the perfect machine he wants to be.
He sucks in one sharp breath between his teeth then another, rubbing his arms against that phantom chill as he settles in to place. His spine curved and exposed in just the right way for that needle he can feel pressing faintly against his skin to slip between the bones and right into nerves. The appropriate command line inputted and ready to go, the only thing left for him to do is press enter.
Just one keystroke.
He ignores the way his hand trembles as he reaches out, pressing that one key with more force than necessary. His breath freezing in his throat and he imagines he can hear the faint hum of mechanical joints moving somewhere underneath the steady whir of computer fans.
Then it starts; a mild sort of discomfort at first that quickly gives way to pain. More than pain. A screaming agony that defies all naming and he feels every single muscle lock up in reaction to the intrusion and the slight jolt it sends along his nerves.
He planned that. Signals to and from the brain are just electric impulses. It only makes sense that the right kind of impulse sent directly to the reflex centre would lock his muscles and ultimately prevent accidental injury. If he were capable of coherent thought he'd be pleased with his foresight on this front.
Except he's not thinking, he's too busy panicking. He can't breathe. His lungs frozen along with everything else and he's going to die he's going to die he's going to diecan'tbreathegoingtodie. Darkness creeping around the edges of his vision, insidious and sucking him under.
He planned for this too. Timed it. Re-timed it. Ran simulation after simulation after simulation. The immobilizing current will stop the instant the needle is secured and his muscles will quickly begin working again. He won't be without air long enough for any permanent damage to be done.
It's impossible to remember that when his hind-brain is thrashing around in absolute terror, though. Screaming that his life is at risk and it hurts it hurtsithurts. When his muscles finally unlock it's very likely the adrenaline rush will cause its own kind of problems.
There's a sharp pinch (that is barely noticeable underneath everything else) as the needle secures itself and suddenly his lungs convulse into motion again. Deep, shuddering, gasps for air that disappear into a retch as his stomach suddenly attempts to turn itself inside out in response to the pain and the rush of chemicals it spawned.
He stopped eating a week ago in preparation for this, everything he needs taken intravenously. There's nothing left in his stomach to lose. Just a thin trickle of bile that he can taste on the back of his tongue as he shivers and chokes and wishes he was dead.
He can't take it. No amount of planning prepared him for this, for the pain that has him wanting to claw his own skin off. To violently yank this intrusion from his back regardless of what kind of damage it might cause in the process.
He wants it out. For it to stop hurting. For it to stop sending these horrifying little pulsing jolts through him that leave his muscles jerking and twitching uncontrollably. For his entire body to stop feeling like a raw nerve that seems to ache in time with his heartbeat.
And why won't it stop hurting? He just wants everything to stop.
What makes matters worse is the simple fact that in the end this is just another test of sorts. A preliminary bit of interfacing that he has to run various diagnostics on and work out how to get his brain to communicate with the system properly and….
He can't even keep his hands steady enough that he'd be able to type at the moment. The idea of needing to concentrate enough to start working out some kind of pseudo-firmware is enough to make him curl into an even tighter ball and choke back another dry-heave.
Painkillers. He really should have included that in his plan. Something that won't interfere with his ability to think clearly, something that isn't habit forming, but will still take some of this vicious, searing, edge off. He'll research that first. Maybe he could get his hands on something experimental.
Once that is taken care of, then phase two can start properly. Then he can bury himself in code and start working on turning his mind into the perfect operating system.
But for the moment, lying perfectly still while concentrating on his breathing and trying not to scream is more than ambitious enough.