Error

by underastarlessnight

In a near distant future where Television companies would do anything to attract viewers, an illegal experiment takes place involving four young actors and a TV show. Archie, Betty, Jughead and Veronica realise they're not who they thought they were and fight to get to the bottom of it. ((Ft. The AU versions of KJ apa, Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart and Camila Mendes.)

1. The Archie Gang

Hey guys! Okay so this has been my fave fic to write this year. I really hope you like it!

Translating...

Struct_group_info init_groups=[,usage=ATOMIC_UNIT :PARTICIPANTS:

nblocks=(gidsetsize=NGROUPS-GROUP_1-NGROUPS-PER-BLOCK:UNLOCK

APA, KJ

SPROUSE, COLE

REINHART, LILI

MENDES, CAMILA

[CHARACTERS_GROUP_1-COUNTERACT-FORWARD-UNLOCK:

ANDREWS, ARCHIE

COOPER, BETTY

JONES, JUGHEAD

LODGE, VERONICA]

LOADING….

PROLOGUE.

Leon was typing feverishly, his skin shining with sweat as his light brown eyes crinkled around the edges, causing the skin on his forehead to seize up. Wrinkles appeared ridged in mingled lines as he leaned forward in his seat, taking a breath of anticipation. It definitely wasn't an attractive sight. Especially for Sammy, who sat next to him. Sammy was a woman in her early twenties with possibly the brightest smile he had ever seen. She had long dark hair she always kept in a neat ponytail and pale skin which seemed to contrast her hair perfectly. Although weirdly, Leon had never felt anything for her. And it bugged him every single day.

Sammy was like no woman he'd ever seen before and he especially didn't expect her to be a hacker. Not that he was sexist or anything, he was completely for equality among both genders, but Sammy seemed...well, she seemed better than this. When she had initially applied for the job, it hadn't been an easy process. First, there was the rather tedious and terrifying process of delving into the deep web. The thing was, Sammy wasn't like the others. She hadn't been an oblivious worker, or a curious student, Sammy was looking for a job in computer hacking.

She had no idea about Telenet, about the experiments, or even about the disappearances and cover-up's. But she did have the skills, after hacking into school records when she was barely a teenager, and changing her friends grades. It got her in trouble a lot, but she was a good student. With a damn good GPA. So, as long as she didn't commit serious crimes, she was left alone.

So, after leaving high school and dropping out of college after finding it harder than she expected, Sammy had dived into job searching, filtering out IT jobs. She didn't want boring nine to five, she wanted excitement. Real computer hacking, like on the films. But that wasn't reality, at least not in the mundane life she thought she knew. Computer hacking according to her, was either getting into Sony's systems and screwing up Multiplayer mode for its million players, or leaking Kylie Jenner's nude photos. In other words, hacking was seen as a crime against society.

Then she had came across an advert for RedHack. There was nothing there but seven or so paragraphs of numerical codes. Which was child's play for Sammy. After decoding the advert, she found it was a brief introduction to who they were and a list of coordinates. Of course she had followed them. She'd met Leon first. And he had showed her the video's.

Leon, who was, again, not sexist, had thought she'd run a mile. But it was a different kind of fear, a terror that morphed into a determination that drove her to want to save these people and stop the program at whatever cost.

Then came the hardest part. Cutting ties from family and friends, anyone close to her. She had grown up in a respected family with both parents being in high paid government jobs, so yes, leaving them washard. All it took was a note telling them she couldn't take it anymore, and a staged suicide. It was the only way she could keep them safe. If they thought she was dead. She missed them sometimes.

Showing her the leaked footage from inside Telenet had been a sort-of test to see if she had the guts. Which she had. After that, and a few incidents where she had showed her true colours, nobody messed with Sammy. Leon admired Sammy. She was barely twenty one and was putting her life on the line.

Well, Leon thought glumly. They all were.

This time they had found themselves in the Scottish Highlands. It had been London yesterday, and Bosnia the day before. It was crucial that they kept moving, never staying in the same place at the same time. Sammy watched as Leon continued to type at a rapid pace, his expression getting more and more intense as he attacked the keyboard. "I've got it." he said, momentarily twisting in his chair to meet Sammy's eyes. She didn't do anything and simply nodded in acknowledgement, straightening up in her own chair, her fingers coming down onto the keyboard, lightning fast.

Sammy was sprawled comfortably on an office chair with her feet up on the desk, like she was sitting at home on a casual Monday night. But the night was anything but casual. It might have looked it, what with the cosy sitting room they had managed to use as a base. It was part of an old Scottish mansion that had since been abandoned. The upper floors had all caved thanks to age, but the sitting rooms downstairs were still in pristine condition.

Now it was a waiting game. Leon took a deep breath and stared at his screen, at the little pop-up box that was flashing in the centre with one simple word in plain white text. He let out a startled laugh, shocking Sammy out of her silence. But she still didn't speak, only choosing to to type faster and more vigorously. But she kept hitting blank screens and encrypted messages in codes of gibberish her exhausted mind couldn't translate. Leon however, seemed to be getting somewhere. "Okay," he muttered, hovering his index over the enter key. "Let's see what you've got." Sammy turned her head to watch, her lips curling slightly into a smile. How could she not. He was the best they had.

Leon had been there from the beginning. He had been working in IT at Telenet Incorporated for two years after well-known Conglomerates had bound together after the downfall of Netflix and The CW Network, and created Telenet, an innovative network who prided themselves on brand new never seen before technology and putting it into their shows. All he did was look at a file he shouldn't have. Or rather, at illegal activity which violated all sorts of laws, including simple human rights. Before he knew it he had men knocking down his door at 4am. He'd been lucky to get away with his life, and he was what RedHack needed. An insider. Someone who had seen the files, who knew what the cooperation were doing. And who wanted to stop it.

Redhack was a hacking organisation, started by Mark Haverford. Leon still hasn't met him. Mark and the 'important' members were at the main US base, near Telenet, while Leon and a few others, basically the younger ones in RedHack, had been sent out to Scotland to try and take down the network through protected servers. The aim was to hack into the running programs.

Except it wasn't a computer they were hacking into. Oh, no. It was so much more than that.

For Leon it had started with a bunch of files. Just simple names, like you would expect to see in a doctor's surgery or school filing cabinet. Leon had been curious. He'd fixed the computer, which had apparently been having 'Network Connectivity Problems' (actually, whoever owned the dinosaur computer had managed to wipe the whole BIOS.) Leon had made a mental note to mention to his manager about maybe getting some recent machines. Like, maybe some macs?

All of the files were just lain out in front of him, accessible with a simple click. He wasn't due back in his office until after lunch, so, ignoring the bad feeling brewing in his stomach, he decided to go rooting around. He didn't expect to find anything, it was supposed to pass time. There was nothing on the desktop, only the galaxy background which hurt his eyes. He'd found himself clicking into MY COMPUTER and struck gold. A window popped up, listing various TV shows, copies of scripts and Edexcel documents with Market Research.

Leon had clicked on the TV SHOWS folder, his curiosity spiking as well a sliver of excitement sparking through him. He ended up staring at a list of Television shows owned by Telenet.

THE FLASH - FAIL (VARIABLE)

SUPERGIRL - FAIL (VARIABLE)

SUPERNATURAL - FAIL (VARIABLE)

iZOMBIE - FAIL (VARIABLE)

ARROW -FAIL (VARIABLE)

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW - PLACEBO

Each name was highlighted in red, which was weird. Leon's eyes crinkled with confusion. What had failed? Were they documenting viewing figures?

He browsed through the directory, hitting lists of what he expected. Cast lists, scripts and production schedules. Boring. He flicked back to the list of shows and continued to scroll, one show catching his eye. Though unlike the other show titles, this one was different. Instead of being highlighted red, it was a bright green.

RIVERDALE. It read, in bold block capitals. Followed by a break, then: SUCCESS.

That particular show grabbed his attention, because he was pretty damn sure that show had stopped airing after its pilot was rejected. He'd heard it had been an attempt at bringing the Archie comic book characters into modern day America, giving it a Twin Peaks type touch. He saw the cast had been announced, the writers, and the producers, and then….and then nothing. As far as he and the general public knew, the show Riverdale was dead.

He told himself not to click on the show, knowing it would be empty like the others. But something was nagging at him. Why would a dead show be included on a list of current ones? And why was it a success compared to the other shows? Shouldn't it be the opposite?

He couldn't help himself. Leon clicked into the folder, and found himself staring at a folder labelled: PROJECT CHRONOS and underneath that;

TEST ONE.

He clicked into it, his curiosity growing. His heart started to slam against his ribcage. The bad feeling continued to dance around in his stomach, making him suddenly really nauseous. Another window popped up. This time it was one folder simply labelled: PARTICIPANTS.

Now his hand was shaking as he found it moving on its own as it double clicked the cursor on the icon. He held his breath. Did he want to see this? His brain was on overdrive, tossing thoughts around relentlessly. The mouse cursor morphed into a blue swirl as the computer loaded into the folder. While he waited, Leon tried to ignore the shivers crawling up and down his spine. Since when does a TV show need participants?

The whole thing was creeping him out. Everything about it was sketchy. A dead TV show having various documents outlining what looked like some kind of experiment. What with 'TEST' and 'PARTICIPANTS'being key words.

Leon rubbed irritably at his jaw and squinted at the screen, fiddling with the machine's mouse, impatiently. "What are you hiding?" he muttered. Then scoffed at himself for sounding so Cliché.

Eventually it had loaded, and a box had popped up, prompting him for a password. He tried the normal ADMIN details he'd been supplied with, but another box appeared, saying the password was incorrect. "Shit," Leon grumbled. He wanted to know. It surprised even him how much he wanted to see what was going on. He had glanced at the clock idly, figuring he had around ten minutes till lunch was over. Then the employee's would be back, and he'd be shooed back to IT in the basement. If he wanted to know what was in those files, he'd have to act now.

Thankfully, whoever's computer it belonged to kept a handy notepad full of passwords and ciphers. Leon pulled it out of the unlocked draw, and couldn't help smirking to himself. Whoever this computer belonged to just granted him access to their entire registry. After flipping through pages and pages of notes and occasional what looked-like personal to-do's, Leon finally came across a page scattered with numerical codes and bolded subheadings.

The title of the page read, sketched in dark pencil and doodles. Leon scanned the list until he caught one in particular:

LOCKED DOCS/NEW AND IN-PROGRESS PROJECTS: LP097GHVD56

Leon memorised the code and retyped it into the prompt box. He held his breath, letting it go in a sigh of relief, when the box disappeared, and another window appeared, named PARTICIPANTS. Before he could stop himself he was clicking on the folder. This time a list of four names came up, sorted alphabetically. He went through them, clicking hesitantly on each one and ended up with four individual windows which seemed to be loading a video. After a quick glance at the clock, Leon leaned forward, his gaze stuck to the computer screen.

The video's all played at the same time, making him jump. The sound booming from the speakers came out all crackly and distorted. The boy looked around his late teens, early twenties. The voice sounded at least middle aged. Leon searched for another person in the room but there were only four identical white walls seemingly blending into the matching tiled floor.

What is this?! Leon's grasp tightened around the mouse, his knuckles whitening. This is a fucking TV network! What was with the shady locked files and what looked like medical footage?

"Subject one," a male's voice sounded. Except the voice didn't match the age of the kid on the bed. "A.A. 01." There was a pause before the voice continued, and Leon's stomach jumped into his throat when he noticed the figure on the bed move slightly. Followed by a disgruntled groan which sounded like the boy was in pain. Leon felt his chest start to tighten as he focused on the young boy. The other video's seemed to display a similar situation, except with different people. There were four of them, all young, the same age as the boy. Two boys and two girls who all seemed to be strapped to the same bed, all struggling, yet unable to cry or scream for help.

Leon paused the other video's, his gaze drawn to the first one with the boy in pain. He pulled his headphones out of his jacket pocket, plugged them into the old fashioned computer tower and corked them in his ears. All while nervously checking the time. If he heard anyone, he'd copy the files to his hard drive and make a run for it.

"Subject A.A. 01 has been implanted with the Vchip." The voice muttered through his headphones. Leon flinched as the voice droned in his ears this time. "He seems to be experiencing difficulty with using speech. We have not yet activated the chip as the corresponding transmitter has only just been inserted into the base of his skull."

Leon felt sick. He wanted to run. He wanted to leave the computer, resign, and go home and cry. But for some reason, some stupid reason which had plagued the human race since its beginning. How when we see a death, a body or someone in pain or discomfort, we can't help just staring for the first few seconds before our brains fully kick in and take action. Except this time Leon's mind didn't boot into any coherent thought process. He only thought: Run.

But something stopped him, yanking him back like elastic. And he stayed, his curiosity getting the better of him. He had to see more. He had to know what was really happening.

So he continued to watch.

The boy seemed to fully understand what was going on, and Leon's head span when the boy's expression twisted with pain. No, Leon thought. No, this kid was in fucking agony. He felt like himself and the boy were slowly coming to the same grim conclusion.

This wasn't a casting video, or an audition tape. Like expected. This was a medical procedure. And by the look of it, it was being done whether the kid liked it or not.

"Can you hear me?" The man demanded, his voice deadpan and cold like splintering ice. The boy was completely strapped down, unable to move. His arms however, were free. He limply held his left hand up instead of speaking, before he moved it behind his head, stroking across his scalp, before he jerked it back, his lips curling with disgust. "What…" the boy finally spoke, and Leon shivered at the sound of his voice. It sounded thick, like he'd been force fed a cocktail of relaxants and sleeping pills. His accent sounded Australian? Or New Zealand. But there was a hint of American seeping in, except it sounded wrong, like it wasn't supposed to be there. "What did you do to my…" the boy winced when he hesitantly touched the back of his head once again. The voice cleared it's throat through a speaker. "Try and calm down, Mr. Andrews."

"What did you do to me?" the boy sounded slightly stronger, but his eyelids were still flickering, like he was on the edge of sleep. The voice, doctor, whoever the hell he was, Leon didn't care, seemed to answer straight away. "You signed a contract." He replied curtly. "Do you remember?"

"No?" The boy tried to sit up, and he managed to balance himself on his elbows before he collapsed back onto the pile of pillows caressing what looked like a bandaged head.

Leon didn't think the boy's expression could get any more confused, but somehow it did, and he turned his dazed brown eyes to the camera. His pupils were enlarged, the skin around his right eye looking swollen red. "I'm not.." the boy seemed to finally grasp hold of reality, and to Leon's surprise, he let out a scoff of weak laughter. "This...this is a joke right?"

"Mr, Andrews." The voice repeated, and this time the boy let out a choked sob. "Wait,Andrews?!"

"For documentation purposes, the date is July the third, two-thousand-and seventeen, and the time is three thirty seven." the voice ignored the boy when he let out another loud and disgruntled sob. "We are currently in the stages of phase one, starting with naming the subject."

"Wait," the boy says weakly, and Leon's blood runs cold. The mystery of this so-called experiment finally coming to light. "Are you...are you calling me by my character's name?"

The boy seemed fully awake now, whether he had been heavily drugged or not.

"There's no need to be alarmed, Archie." the voice continued. "This is just standard procedure. Now, you're authorised to listen to what I'm about to tell you. You signed a contract which holds you to that, do you understand me?"

Leon watched the rebellion dissolve in the boy's expression and made way for fear. "What contract?!" he hisses, and Leon's chest aches. "Tell me what's going on!"

"Under the contract 309.75 that you signed yesterday under the name KJ Apa, you agreed to participate in Project Chronos and fully subject yourself to all upcoming and past procedures." the voice seems to ignore the boy- KJ's cry of confusion. "What?" he tries once again to sit up but is yanked back down like a rag doll. His kiwi accent comes out full on. "You got me to sign a contract when I was wasted?!"

A small pause. "We didn't think you and the others would willingly sign the contract if you knew what you were getting into."

"So you drugged me?!"

"Mr Andrews-" the voice crackles with impatience.

Terror and confusion lights up the boy's expression. "I'm not Archie!" he yelled, trying to squirm his way out of the bonds that held him down. "Why...why are you calling me that? That's not my name!"

A sudden ear piercing shriek sounds out, rattling Leon's ears. But the boy doesn't react to it. In fact, he doesn't do anything. He stops squirming, trying to escape, and just flops down on the bed like dead weight. His eyes were still open, staring at the ceiling, but there was nothing there.

There's what sounds like a chuckle that flitters through the speaker and Leon's blood runs cold. "Then tell me," he sounds almost smug. "What is your name?"

The boy's jaw clenches, life returning to his expression and he opens his mouth, presumably to tell it, but suddenly shuts it, his eyes widening. "I…" he struggles to speak. "I..I don't know."

"Activation complete." the voice said clearly, professional once again. "File A.A.101 is ninety five percent downloaded."

There's another crackle as the voice chuckles. "I told it you just a few minutes ago, would you mind telling it me again?"

The boy stares directly into the camera, his expression blank. Anything that was there, any rebellion, any trace of humanity of the terrified kid he had been a few moments ago, was gone. What was left behind was an empty shell. "Archie." the boy says without hesitation. His voice is changing, the accent twisting from his native New Zealand twang to a new-age modern American. "Archie Andrews."

Finally, after what felt like hours of typing code, cracking through firewall after firewall, he finally had it. The main core. Everything he needed to take them down.

A list of names, names he had seen before, suddenly appeared on the screen, rapidly raining down in splashes of code. Most of the names passed and plunged into cyberspace before he could catch them, but one trailed behind, and he somehow managed to grab it.

APA, KJ.

Leon's heart sank a little. Just at the thought of what the boy was going through. And that gave him even more reason to start typing into the flashing white box. Sammy whipped her head back, her chocolate brown hair straying from her ponytail and flying in her face. "Hurry up!" she yelled. "Dude, we have an hour, tops!"

"I know." Leon growled back, his eyes glued to the screen. He wanted to type so much, a bunch of messages slammed into his brain, votes of sympathy and plain gibberish. But he had to type something. Something that mattered, something that attacked the program.

"I have the other names." Sammy was smiling, her fingers dancing across the keyboard. "Now we just input them into the system and kill it."

Leon nodded, but his fingers strayed, hovering over the keys. He had no idea what to say. He had a moment of weakness, the first in years, when he had no idea what to do. A list of code rained down the screen and he struggled to comprehend that it was someone's thoughts, someone's mental actions and reactions. It was somebody's goddamn brain and he had hacked into it. Eventually after his momentary freak out, Leon shook his head and forced himself to concentrate. He scanned the monitor, his gaze flickering across the screen as code flashed up, commands and prompts that were getting downloaded straight into the kid's brain.

CNMD: APA, KJ: WALK_MOVE_FORWARD_LEFT_RIGHT_MOVE_ARM_LAUGH-TALK:[":BETTY I NEED TO TALK TO YOU"]

It made him sick. This went against human nature, against the freedom to speak, or in this kid's case, do anything. Leon made a face. Just watching the prompts flashing up and imagining the kid obeying to them, being forced to comply due to the contract he was under, that was buried deep inside his skull. The company owned him, owned all of them. They were puppets on strings, forced to act for entertainment. Leon remembered when acting was a choice.

Now it was a death sentence. "Okay." Leon highlighted the prompts listed on the screen and hit delete, and couldn't help a small smile creeping on his lips. For just a second, the kid would be free. There would be no more instructions to follow. It would completely fuck up the system.

Leon checked his microphone was plugged in, and then proceeded to type, quick as a flash into the prompt bar. His words appeared in white writing, scrolling across the screen.

He was careful to copy how the code was written, making sure he got everything. "Leon!" Sammy was hissing impatiently. "We have ten minutes until they block us."

"And then we get moving!" a new voice yelled. It was Gansey. Leon could practically hear Sammy's eyes rolling in their sockets. Gansey was a few years older than Leon, and if their little hacking group was to have a jock, or a 'popular guy' in it, then Gansey would be that guy. He popped his head in the door, the stupidest smirk on his lips. "You guys in?" his tone was playful, as if this wasn't a life or death situation. As if this wasn't people's lives they were playing with.

Gansey stood, as usual in his obligatory white shirt and casual jeans. He had a tendency to wear a light green beanie over his hobbity brown hair, and for some reason, it pissed Leon off.

The only backstory he knew of Gansey's, was that he had ended up on a website he shouldn't have been on, where someone was leaking Telenet's secrets to the public. Except the information was all in code, and Gansey seemed to be the only one smart enough to crack it. After that, the website had been taken down, and Gansey had gone on the run, finding RedHack.

"Give us a sec, jeez!" Sammy twisted around to scowl at Gansey, who only grinned back. "So, have we figured out how to remove the Vchips?" he asked, and Leon nodded slowly. "We're almost there." he answered. But that wasn't good enough for Gansey.

Truthfully, Leon secretly had absolutely no idea what to do with the V-chips. They were brand new pieces of technology only being tested on subjects by Telenet. Leon had no idea how to remove them. The best knowledge he had from an insider, was that the chip's were implanted directly behind the eye, as well as a transmitter plugged into the base of the skull. Leon didn't known much about anatomy, but was sure that it was nearly impossible to remove something that had been physically planted behind your eye. As for the transmitter, he preferred not to even think about that. It was beyond him.

"We're going back to base in about half an hour, with everything we need to bring down Telenet and you still haven't figured how to take down the Vchips?!" Gansey folded his arms, but he wasn't frowning. There was a testing, almost challenging smirk on his lips.

Gansey loved a challenge.

"The only thing we can do is hack into the program's and overpower the prompts, genius." Sammy said, sounding like she was two seconds away from pouring her cold cup of coffee which sat abandoned at her desk, over Gansey's head. "We're not fucking Einstein."

Ignore them. Leon kept typing.

Gansey was one of those people who Leon just wanted to punch. All the damn time. He was British, but it wasn't the accent that made him quite literally insufferable. He was everything Leon wanted to be, but because of things like genetics and unfortunately inheriting his father's horrific eyesight as well as relentless raven curly hair and albino coloured skin, it meant that Leon was a frog prince compared to Gansey, who looked like he had just stepped out of a modelling studio. "Let's get this show on the road!" Gansey leapt over the battered sofa near the door and wandered over to Sammy and Leon. Already Leon could detect that Gansey was staring at him. He bit his lip and continued typing, even if his anxiety was starting to slowly creep back.

"Poor kids." Gansey muttered. Leon could feel his warm breath on the back of his neck; Gansey had been a late comer, one of the last recruits. Leon wasn't sure howGansey had managed to worm his way into their group. Everyone involved had shown intelligence, which Leon was sure the boy lacked. Leon rolled his eyes. "Aren't most of them the same age as you?" he muttered.

Leon was pretty sure the kids were his near-enough his age too. But he was too stubborn to admit that.

"Exactly!" Gansey exclaimed. "Man, that could have happened to me." Leon swore he detected something in the boy's voice which for once wasn't sarcasm or amusement. For once, Gansey Middleton was acting serious.

Leon's hands shook as he typed. Gansey stayed silent. He could feel Sammy's eyes burning into the back of his head as his rough fingers danced across the keys. He tried hard not to think about the brain he was playing with. He was influencing someone's thoughts just by clicking keys on his keyboard. But anything was better than the kid still being under their control.

"I've got B.C.102." Sammy said, squinting at her screen as she typed. Her lips curled into a smile as she hit the ENTER key. "Now get the hell out of there." she muttered.

"We managed to knock out the cameras for about ten minutes," Gansey said, his eyes on Leon's screen. "It should give them enough time to make a run for it."

Leon nodded. "A.A.101 is ready to kill." his forehead was wet with perspiration as he attacked the keys. He typed in:

[NEW CMD PROMPT:] For a second his mind blanked, and he thought back to the video files of the procedure, of what exactly Telenet were doing to these kids. His fingers froze, his heart starting to skip and stutter in his chest. But Gansey was still behind him, warm breath still tickling his neck every time the bastard breathed.

"You got this, Lee." Gansey muttered, and his words hit Leon like a brick to the face. He nodded, shaking hair out of his eyes and continued to type. He could feel his face heating up for some reason, and it never did that. The shaking had gotten even worse the more Gansey talked.

Focus. Leon told himself. Finally the last prompt box appeared, and he typed the only words he could think of:

GET

IT

OUT.

NOW.

And then, suddenly struggling to breathe, he hit enter.

"A.A. 01, or..whatever your name is." Gansey murmured behind him, leaning in close. "We just granted you independence."

His name is KJ. Leon thought, a flitter of memories coming back to haunt him. He pushed them to the back of his head and concentrated on the code. The screen was processing the prompt. He felt a collective breath being held between the three of them. Before the code seemed to glitch, and his prompt appeared, running swiftly under the program. Leon let out a breath of relief and then a gasp which turned into a laugh. Sammy and Gansey joining in. "Yes!"

Leon found himself twisting around and grinning, but grinning at Gansey. Which, hell, he never did. Gansey was smiling back at him, brown eyes triumphant, and Leon felt something then, a pang in his chest. "Shit." Sammy's voice sliced into his thoughts and dragged him back to reality. Gansey was already listening to her, eyebrows furrowing. "What's wrong?"

Sammy had paled and was typing at her keyboard, or at least trying to type. But her screen was unresponsive. "They've figured out what we're doing and have put some kind of protocol in place," she squinted at her screen and Leon left his chair, moving over to her machine, Gansey right behind him. "The code!" Sammy hissed. "It keeps changing!"

"Wait," Gansey poked the screen with his finger and followed the explosion of code which was running down the screen. "This is just for AA and BC, right?"

The screen underneath JJ.103 and VL.104 were still filled with prompts, but Sammy had cancelled most of the demands, so Leon guessed that without any prompts or anything to say, the others would come back to an element of self awareness and figure out something was wrong.

"Right." Sammy muttered. "The others have reclaimed some kind of consciousness, but the chip's are still transmitting." she let out a frustrated hiss. "As for 01 and 02, I have no idea what any of that means." she says. "I've never seen anything like it before."

Leon scrutinised the screen, his gaze filtering through the layers of code running down the screen before something hit him, a memory he had tried to suppress.

"I have." Leon muttered, both Gansey and Sammy's gazes flitting to him in question.

"That," Leon said, his voice was shaking no matter how hard he tried to keep it under control. He pointed to the code which still scrolled down the screen at a rapid pace.

"That's a kill switch." he said grimly. "They're going to try and shut down the program before we can knock out the signal."

Gansey let out a breath and positioned himself over Sammy's keyboard. His tone came out determined, a ghost of his former self. "Then we fucking stop it."

For two months now, Set 2 had no disturbances. There were no breaks, since there was no crew. Everything was filmed on tiny cameras only visible with the naked eye. The set had been a school for the last few days. The gloomy school corridors of Riverdale High School. Most of the time there were extras paid to be there, or voluntary participants in the operation, but today it was just the four main characters. They had been standing in the corridor, all of them mindlessly running off scripts in their heads like drones. They tried to make the characters as lifelike as possible, even through the procedure. But nobody, not even Telenet's latest technology, could wipe the vacant and not-quite-there look in their eyes.

That was until, Set 2, after a long three months of being nothing but forced speech and actions, suddenly burst into life. Into colour. When the cameras that had been constantly filming them every second of every day, had blinked off.

But it wasn't just the cameras. Shortly before they went down, the four unwilling participants in Telenet's cruel greed for perfect television, also codenamed PROJECT CHRONOS finally seemed to open their eyes, and instead of seeing dull black and white, they were seeing vibrant extravagant colour. Or rather, they were seeing what it really was. Where they really were. Which wasn't a high school corridor in a so-called sleepy town with a secret. It was Set 2, Stage 7. Which finally, after long months of nothing, had been awakened.

Archie Andrews had been in the middle of saying something. At least, he was sure that he had been, but until about a second ago, his mind had gone completely blank. The dialogue that seemed to always be somewhere within the forefront of his head, simply stopped abruptly.

Instead, only one voice flicked across his conscious, "Get. It. Out. Now." followed by a series of random code and text that skidded across his eyes.

Wait.." he seemed to catch hold of himself for a second, his right hand automatically going to the back of his head. "What.." he started to speak, but something rang out in his ears, a piercing screech that eventually managed to coarse him back into submission. But he wasn't having any of it. Archie grabbed his hair and started yanking at it, his expression twisting with distress.

"Argh!" Archie yelled out and stumbled forward slightly, before collapsing entirely, head between his knees with his hands slammed over his ears.

"Archie?" Jughead spoke softly, and then frowned, because he couldn't really remember what he'd been saying prior. In fact, everything in his head was a blank. Jughead's gaze left Archie for a second, and found Betty and Veronica, standing there like they too were suddenly coming out of some kind of stupor. Betty, in fact, looked as if she suddenly had the urge to take off and run away, however, she hadn't said anything. A small gasp coming from Archie's direction suddenly had Jughead turning back to the redhead, who, brows furrowed in concentration, seemed as if he was trying to make sense of something. Again, he called out, "Arch...?"

Archie shot up to his feet with a sudden disconnected determination. "I…" he swallowed. "I'm n-not Archie…Oh god, I-" His entire voice bounded off the walls of the stage setting, making Archie sound as if he'd become a completely different person. But not only that, his accent was no longer his voice, it sounded all wrong. American and slightly Australian mixed with something Jughead was sure he'd heard before, but he couldn't quite remember where.

Stunned to silence, neither Veronica nor Jughead could utter a syllable, only taking a collective step backwards, staring.

That was when Archie looked up at the three others standing there, only a few feet away from him. An almost indecipherable gleam of recognition shot across his already wide amber eyes, before his knees buckled and those eyes reverted to the back of his skull. Jughead stepped out to reach him, to touch him, to make sure he was okay, but was interrupted. No sooner had Archie hit the hollow ground with a painful thud that Betty let out a piercing scream, fingernails ripping at her neat, blonde ponytailed hair. "What did you-what the hell did you do to him?!" she demanded.

Betty hurried toward Archie and tried to shake him awake, his body flailing uselessly like a ragdoll, but to no avail. As she stood up, she spoke to -or rather at- no one in particular, waving her arms around. "Did you hear me? I said-" Betty froze before her blue eyes became unfocused and distant, before falling to the floor next to Archie's body, following him in suit.

Both Veronica and Jughead instantly whipped around to look at each other, as if they were afraid of each other suddenly fainting as well. That look could've lasted a few minutes or a few hours, before reality came back to them and the two raven haired teens were bolting (or rather, Ronnie was, Jughead simply couldn't be bothered for anything other than a speed walk) for their unconscious friends. Kneeling down beside his redheaded friend, Jughead poked Archie's cheek softly. "Well," he let out an unsteady breath, glancing up at Veronica who had a pale hand to her mouth, eyes wide with shock. "This just got fifty shades of crazy."