AN: I've had the idea for this story kicking around my head for quite a while but never got around to writing it until now, after I took an unplanned break away from Wreck-It Ralph writing. To get back into writing for this fandom I started with this, but really didn't plan for it to get as long as it did – honestly, 14,000+ words is pretty crazy, and just…happened! But it's done now and I've got it out of my system, and will be concentrating on my multi-chapter stories now. This story is completed but I'm posting it in two parts - mainly because of its length, but also because it naturally ended up splitting itself into two slightly different styles. The second part features more dialogue, and will be up in a day or so.
This story is quite dark and bleak, but there aren't any really graphic descriptions in it though. However if you don't feel comfortable reading about people getting hurt then you shouldn't read this, as you won't like it. For those of you that do read it please accept my thanks for doing so, and my apologies for having such a dark and disturbed mind!
interrupt handler
/a small computer program released in response to a high priority system alert that requires immediate attention
/such an interruption to the processor's regular activities is designed to exist on a temporary basis only
I. System Alert
Many games have entered and left Litwak's arcade since its creation, and for the most part their transitions have been anticipated and prepared for. But some games have fallen instead of grown; have experienced a sudden collapse rather than a controlled detonation; and left many characters associated with them being remembered for all the wrong reasons.
The first of these is Road Blasters, and the Surge Protector's still never been allowed to forget it.
The other characters have said and thought and still say and think and always will say and always will think that alright, fine, Road Blasters had just been plugged in and there wouldn't have been much time to put up a barrier to protect it even though it could, even though it should have been done, but let's wave that to the side until it's convenient to pull it back in shall we; those poor new characters just switched on and then ripped right back out again such a shame, such a terrible shame, but it was sudden and unexpected and they probably didn't suffer too much, and who ever thought Turbo could have done that?
Who ever thought Turbo would have been allowed to do that?
Road Blasters naturally leads onto the second game, which many see as forever joined.
Not pointing fingers or anything but, you know, Turbo Time had been plugged in for ages. It had been operational for years, so why hadn't a barrier been installed over that? Why hadn't the alert sounded and why wasn't anything done to stop Turbo's kart and why were those poor twins allowedto die like that?
Why were they just…allowed to die?
The third is Sugar Rush, but paradoxically this one hurts the least.
Fifteen years of dictatorial rule happening right under your nose is a lot to sink in, and the length of time is just too vast to take seriously. If someone had snuck in and messed about for an hour or a day or even a week it would be easier to accept as real, because that's believable and something you can relate to, but fifteen years?
Fifteen years?
The fourth game to be ruined under his watch happened three days ago.
It's recent enough to still seem slightly unreal, but seventy-two hours is just about right for nothing else to have changed around the sucking black hole that's appeared where the console used to stand, and that unfair and slightly disgusting habit of everyday life occurring as if nothing has happened underlines the fact that something has happened.
Fix-It Felix Junior has only recently been ripped out of the arcade, and his sense of time is splintering.
After the Sugar Rush and Cy-Bug and Wreck-It Ralph incident, he had been the only one to warn against allowing the homeless characters to become part of Fix-It Felix Junior.
But there wasn't one other character that supported his viewpoint, and the will of the crowd was fierce. Against his better judgement he reluctantly coded them into the game for, as several of them pointed out, what was his purpose if not to protect and serve?
He did it, but stubbornly continued to explain to anyone who would listen that it was a manipulation too far, and decisions such as these shouldn't be made on the crest of a bright wave.
In response they either laughed at or argued with him, glad to be part of the in-crowd for once or just because they liked a good verbal exchange. The arcade was still awash with joy and relief and that temporary feeling of invincibility that the world really is a good place, and look; for once it's aligning itself properly and nothing is impossible.
Well no-one had laughed when Mr Litwak had made a deal with a rich teenager and sold her the game.
A Fix-It Felix Junior console with bonus levels and characters was unique and popular, and brought in good business to the arcade. But then he'd received a pupil-dilating-sharp-intake-of breath great offer, which had made him remove his glasses and wipe them vigorously.
Mr Litwak had of course refused the offer at first: the game was near family, and how could he part with that?
But he hadn't shown her the door or moved an inch, instead choosing to just stand there, breathing carefully and wringing his hands so that the glass lenses creaked in their frames.
The girl had cocked her head, put a hand on her hip, grinned and added another zero onto the end of her price.
Without making eye contact Mr Litwak had shook her hand and accepted it. He'd laughed nervously, distractedly, joking if she wanted to make the best use of her money and take the game away with her right now.
And then to everyone's surprise she replied that was exactly what she wanted to do.
Before anyone could stop her she'd then torn the game's plug out, belatedly realised she probably should have turned it off first, grimaced, shrugged, and then made a call for someone to come and pick it up.
Still with his eyes to the ground Mr Litwak had silently stretched out a hand towards his office. She'd petted the console once, twice, smiled widely and then strode in the direction indicated, her shoes making a satisfying crunch as she crushed the small fragments of glass in her way.
By the end of this day, the first day, the arcade carries on working as if normal, but everyone's on auto-pilot and doing their best to implode silently.
He undertakes the random security checks as usual, hoping that a bit of regularity will at least try to stabilise something, anything, and the sooner it can be course corrected the…better?
Calhoun doesn't see it like this, and doesn't waste a second in coming to the point when he stops her.
'You're just doing this because you don't have anything else to do, so don't dare try and pretend otherwise!' she screams into his face.
'This is-' he begins, before both her hands clamp around his neck and he's lifted off his feet.
'A pointless waste of time, yeah, I know! Don't have to be a blind puppy drowning in a bag to see things for what they are.' She squeezes tighter, her face a rictus of pain. 'Why don't you do something right for a change?'
Calhoun drops him sharply, and when he doesn't move or say a word she looks at him in pure disgust and strides off.
'…not easy for me either,' he concludes under his breath, as he follows her back carving a path through the crowd.
He should have used an analogy to be more relatable, started off with that, but such things have never come easy to him and patience is at a premium now.
He tries to think of a character that has had a limb ripped from their body with no preparation, anaesthetic or prospects of aftercare, and is just expected to stem the bleeding and go on as normal with a crowd pleasing look about their face, but he comes up blank.
Even if he could use them as a parallel, he's sure it would be pointless.
By the morning of the second day they're bleeding pain and grief freely now, thickly and barely restrained, and he supposes it's his job to absorb it all, since his very purpose is to soak up dangerous surges of power that threaten to overwhelm everything in its path.
He supposes but doesn't know, but how else can he explain what's happening to him?
He's designed to absorb and store and then vent in a safe and controlled manner, but this is not happening.
It's all being absorbed and is building up and up and up and it's only when he's stumbled, one hand shot out against the wall to steady himself, eyes shut tight with a burning vice around his head, that he realises not one drop of it has been released.
It's in their eyes and faces and actions, all spoken and silent, that he allowed, just allowed these things to happen; that he allowed, permitted, stood by, wrung his hands or looked the other way while another game crashed burned imploded when he didn't, he really didn't, because why on earth would he want that to happen?
Why would he want that to happen to himself?
He conducts the second round of security checks with an anxious impatience, because Calhoun is one of those suffering the most and that's probably a reason for her behaviour, it has to be a reason, but maybe the others won't be the same., so he makes an effort to do what they've accused him of never doing:
He acts.
He looks them directly in the eyes instead of keeping his head bowed, and when he questions them he asks the obvious ones he's intentionally overlooked before.
But, and this is what makes him choke back a sick laugh, it doesn't work.
Whoever he stops and questions keeps their eyes firmly averted, gives a response that is short and blunt and- and almost fearful, and they don't dare mock him or even answer back and it's like the poles have been reversed and no-one's told him.
He's doing everything they ever wanted him to do and it doesn't work.
What more can he do when both directions lead him to dead ends?
What?
….what more does he want to do?
The wall of pressure continues to build and the more he actively tries – the more he does what they want him to do – the more they recoil.
He's always generated bored indifference or frustrated impatience in them before, but this is the first time he's managed to actively repel them.
He takes a step forward and they take two back; he asks questions harshly, sweetly, kindly and cruelly and their responses get shorter and quieter.
He looks at everything and takes it all in, doesn't miss a thing not a thing and he points this out to them, demonstrates it to them and proves it to them that he's not letting anything get him past him again, not ever again, and all they do is avert their gaze and shuffle past his wide unblinking stare, because if they don't look at it they can pretend it's not there.
The more he tries the more he fails, action and inaction they really must be the same, two opposites that make a whole but where does he fit into this, bypassed over again, like a circuit rebuilding and completing itself around him again and this foreign charge in him is still building and sloshing and pressing outwards like it's angry at being contained and now it's starting to eat through a layer and it's not going to stop and-
…and it hurts.
Everything hurts.
Halfway through the second day it's a steady pressure behind his eyes and a deep ache inside his teeth.
It's a backwash of electric current that's mounting up like stagnant water behind a dam, drop by drop until an invisible ocean is forming in front of no-one, and it's building up so quickly and so completely that it's frightening, it really is scary, because this is an invasion against his will and beyond his comprehension.
It's an assault against his entirety, and what makes it worse is the sick sort of pride he feels that he can cope with it all.
By the end of the second day, when the arcade is closing and everyone's pouring out of their games, he knows that the particles are jostling and sloshing and lapping at his brim but it's not a problem, because all he has to do is close his eyes and the excess bleeds out that way.
Electrons, poles, waves and the unique science of the arcade mean nothing when one of those laws is breaking all over you, are of academic interest only, when there's a crawling itch blistering your skin and a layer of static coating your mouth, and you know that this isn't right it just isn't right, none of it is, but it's happening it's still actually happening, and you really really should stop being so surprised when you're faced with this revelation yet again.
On the morning of the third day, when the arcade is opening and everyone's entering their games, he conducts several non-random security checks.
Mostly as a belated control for an experiment, to determine a half-baked theory he has about his condition, but also because he still hasn't yet learnt that hope is pointless and nothing more than a waste of time.
He stops them and some actually make unwitting eye contact for a split second, before they shut them tight and flinch as if about to be struck; they move as if they've glanced something obscene that shouldn't exist, sharp lines and burning blue, and they're right because it shouldn'texist but it does.
They don't know how to define it or cure it or reverse it but they know it's there, that something has changed about him, but he's always been strange and they have better things to worry about, so they do nothing and say nothing and just hope that it will soon pass away without a fuss.
By the end of the third day he watches it happen as if from a distance; as if he's disconnected from it and is looking at someone who could almost be himself.
If anyone were to ask him to describe it – not that they would of course why would they – he'd tell them to first of all picture a bottle.
Now imagine you're pouring drink out of that bottle into an empty glass, ice cold liquid splashing and the tang of it fizzing and you're sure you've done it right – you're sure you've calculated it correctly and you're pouring it with a flourish of confident anticipation, but it soon becomes clear that you're not right.
You haven't timed it or angled it right and you haven't been paying attention from the start, despite what you thought.
The liquid's faster and higher and more determined than you imagined possible, and with a start you realise that it's about to overflow.
It's not loud or dangerous and is mostly just irritating, as you realise it's too late to get a cloth to protect the table from the thick bubbles about to cover it, so you just wait and watch and let the damage take its course.
The foaming mess of bubble looks disastrous, but when it finally tips over the top its descent is slow and somewhat…reluctant, and you wonder why you'd been so alarmed about it in the first place, because you haven't lost that much after all.
It spits its way down onto the surface, and in brief indifference you wonder if there had been enough time to get that protection after all, as you sigh in annoyance and look half-heartedly about for it, all the while missing that micro-thin top layer that's being eaten into and permanently destroyed.
He knows that although your programming can be bent if you have the will or receive the necessary stimulus, it cannot be completely broken.
Even if you hacked into a code box and completely re-wired it, it just wouldn't work.
But that's OK, because he has no desire to change who he is and, despite everything, he hasn't found himself spun round to face the other way.
He tells Calhoun first, because she deserves to know and because she deserves to be thanked. She also deserves to be prepared, and since he's still fair he's giving her a chance to pick the signs up. If she is still so consumed by something else that she's unable to function properly, then it only supports what he's about to do.
He stops her on her way into Tappers, and notices that she's still making eye contact with him. She's the only one to continue doing so - a fact for which he's always been glad - which makes him curious as to why he's disappointed he no longer feels this way.
'You've got a-'
'You're right,' he interrupts her, which may actually have been the first time he's done so, to her or to anyone.
She narrows her puffy eyes and crosses her arms tightly across her chest, her reluctant silence an invitation for him to continue.
'When you say that I need to do something right. For…for a change.'
She tilts her head just as the door of Tappers flies open and a burst of noise explodes out of the bar. The door swings on its hinges to crash into the wall as a group piles into it and he blinks slowly as it does so, enhanced light streaking across his glasses, before it swings back again and closes loudly.
The rowdy noise from the bar is cut off abruptly, leaving them in a silence just as artificial, and Calhoun is looking down at him in something that could almost be described as-
'About goddamn time,' she spits, before he can put his finger on what her face was trying to say.
He nods, blinks again.
'I will see you later,' he promises her dully, clearly, emotionlessly as he turns and leaves and the bar's door has swung open again and smashed into the wall again and has released another wave of magnified noise again.
The door completes its rhythm with a slam, and he doesn't have to turn around to know that Calhoun is still standing motionless in its shadow.
Everyone was right, he's finally concluded.
Or has he finally accepted that they were right?
Has he been… forced to accept it?
He doesn't know but it doesn't matter, of course it doesn't matter, because everything's slightly hazy and empty now and he's gone past the point of pretending to care. He's been saturated with fear and guilt and who knows what else and then upended, and they're right when they say he hasn't been doing his job properly they must be right, and the only way to correct himself is to correct them.
He's been too lax with them, he knows this now, and he only has himself to blame, now that is the truth.
He's allowed anyone to visit any game they felt like at any time, and looked the other way when illegal objects were being smuggled out in front of him.
Well no more.
No
more.
He will now be strict and uncompromising, and will never allow anyone to get hurt again. He'll never allow himself to be blamed again, but that's hardly the prime directive here of course.
Popularity doesn't matter, but doing his job does.
But before this new administration can be implemented arcade wide – before this safer and more secure form of supervision can be established – he needs to remove some dangerous elements that still exist in it.
Some walking, talking, self-aware elements that, once removed, will help tip the scales back into balance again.
They won't like what will happen to them, but it will be for their own good.
They will be dealt with professionally and will be cured, and the other characters will be safe and secure. They will be protected and spared and he might then be able to start sleeping again.
And if he's going to do this, then he's going to do it properly.
And if he's going to do it properly, then he's going to describe it properly.
He needs to safeguard both himself and everyone in the arcade, which means he doesn't need to implement some new procedures and ask them politely to follow them.
He doesn't need to target selected characters for a slight adjustment, and he certainly doesn't need to re-model or re-organise or re-structure them.
What he does need to do is to purge them.
A large number of gas discharge tubes form part of his system, which contain a special mixture to absorb high voltage spikes of dangerous electricity.
He runs a finger along one of the neon green containment tubes, its contents swirling thickly, and reminds himself just how easy the procedure to keep the gas safely contained is.
It's simple to understand and activate and maintain, and will be just as easy to reverse.
It will require a bit of coordination to get everyone together in one place, but the end results will be worth it.
He locks down the arcade that evening, in the early hours when all is dark and no-one's moving.
With a calm certainty bordering on nonchalance he reverses the electrical current, opens the gas vents into each game, and disables their internal warning alarms.
He sits back slowly and, with his left thumb, clicks the stop-clock held in the same hand.
Speed isn't the primary concern here, but it will be interesting to see how long they take to get out.
After forty three seconds most games have emptied themselves.
Most characters had moved hesitantly towards their exit at first but, when they had realised exactly what was happening, they had run.
If they had been human their lungs would have begun to burn from each intake of breath, and their skin would have begun to blister and peel. But they weren't, and their equivalent was to glitch and pixelate into different colours as the gas began to corrode their code.
Some of the characters didn't make it outside into Game Central Station in time, but that was hardly his fault. He couldn't leave the doors open forever, or else the gas would affect the Station itself.
If they were too slow to react that was a flaw with their design, nothing he can do about that, and if they weren't important enough to be remembered or to be helped then that is a burden for their colleagues to bear, not him.
After forty four seconds he hits the stop-clock again, and sighs as he looks at the time.
The result is disappointing, and he makes a mental note to organise practice drills for the ones that will be left.
After forty five seconds he presses a letter on the keyboard in front of him, and leans in close towards the monitor.
The confirmation warning flashes across his face, blood red streaks highlighting the dark office he sits in, asking him if he's sure he'd like to proceed.
Yes, he is indeed sure.
…he's very sure.
After forty six seconds he depresses the key again, eyes fixed to the screen, and wonders why he ever programmed it to flash and shimmer as if it's in pain.
As if it's… accusing him.
He leans back into the chair slowly, elbows on the arm rests and hands clasped lightly in his lap, and sits back in comfort, in perfect posture, and lets his eyelids become branded with the sight.
Inside Game Central Station metal blast doors abruptly descend over the entrance to each game, sealing them off with a pneumatic hiss.
The digital boards spelling out each game's name stop mid-scroll, and a second later their backgrounds simultaneously wipe into pitch black. Florescent yellow biohazard symbols appear in the middle of them, and began to throb out of sync.
The Public Service Announcement stations follow suit, as Sonic is silenced and replaced with the toxic warning signs.
These ones are larger, and rotate slowly.
The lights dim, and there's a collective intake of breath as everyone struggles to understand what's happening. A cloud of anxious mutterings fill the hall, interspersed with questions and peppered with hesitant irritation.
The lights then flicker, and alarms begin to wail.
The atmosphere in the packed Station tightens, and a few sobs escape as everyone tenses closer together.
Some clearer headed characters try to access the help booth's computer terminal, but find the screen dead.
A few have even remembered where the emergency exit hatches are, but when they find them inexplicably sealed shut they exclaim in despair. This information sparks and spreads quickly, its ripple of panic swelling into a wave of characters surging towards a door, any door, just to try and-
The lights go out, plunging everyone into liquid blackness.
Sharp screams are the only things that escape, and several characters are crushed in the desperate stampede that follows.
Strobing orange emergency lights are activated, and mix in with the bright yellow pulses of the biohazard signs.
The Station is illuminated in industrial colours and awash with desperate sounds, and the wave of attempted escape folds back upon itself in critical confusion again and again and again.
He watches it all with a sort of detached bemusement.
Crowds are fickle and pathetically easy to control, especially when he knows how they would react individually. But he doesn't want to control the crowd; he only wants to adjust a select few individuals and, once he has them cured, the rest will follow. These chosen ones may not see their treatment as, well, treatment, but sometimes the bitterest medicine is the most effective.
Sometimes tough love is required, and sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
As soon as a game was plugged in, he would write a block of code to allow each character to leave it.
Everyone would freely give him permission for him to access their code room and make the necessary adjustments, so pathetically eager were they to go exploring and make new friends. No-one had ever bothered to ask him what he would do their code, and certainly not what else could be done to it.
He supposes he should feel grateful that they trusted him so readily and completely, but he only feels disdain towards them, because they will allow – they will thank – someone for manipulating the very threads of their existence without even bothering to ask about it.
Well if they're not concerned by that, then they have no right to then take the high ground when they eventually find out what else he's done to it.
All it takes is three strokes of a keyboard to activate the secret layer of code he'd buried in them.
It's quite ingenious the way he managed to compress such a complex action into so few chains of binary, but he's not going to hold his breath that anyone will ever applaud him for it.
He enters the final command into the computer, and receives confirmation that the selected three have been removed from the Station and placed into… more secure holding facilities.
Yes, that sounds about right.
…that sounds… right.
The three had been surrounded by friends and colleagues and sympathisers, and as soon as they had vanished into the flickering blackness the screaming had kicked up a gear.
Perhaps the ones remaining know what it feels like to be compressed on all sides now, seeing those walls squeeze closer and quicker and tighter and just knowing that it won't stop until it's crushed something once thought immovable out of you.
But they've got the ability to steady and re-arrange themselves if only they focus, and they don't know just how lucky they are.
The screaming and wailing alters pitch into something higher, something primal, as concern for others descends into the possibility that they will be next.
If he felt it appropriate to smile, he believes he would do so wryly.
Self-preservation is frowned on by many even though it's carried out by all, and he doesn't understand why they should feel guilty about it.
It's natural and useful and he doesn't blame them for it, will never blame them for it.
Why would he, when he's doing the exact same thing?