How long had he been sitting there now? Twelve, thirteen hours? He'd been up for far longer periods of time. In fact, this was weak compared to the other times he sat down for a night of programming. So this should be easy enough, right? Just a little bit longer, he told himself. Although truthfully, he wasn't sure if he could keep pushing. But he had to. He had to. He'd already wasted a week trying to re-program the Megapod, when he was sure it wouldn't take long at all compared to the Skid. Just a little bit longer.
For twelve hours straight he had been sitting in that stiff-ass chair, staring at that bright-ass screen. His back hurt. His joints creaked whenever he moved. His neck was tight. His eyes were strained. Everything hurt. But he had to keep pushing. If he could just finish this tonight, then he'd be able to rest up. He could probably get, what, five hours? That'd be an accomplishment.
His fingers locked up, and he groaned as he had to pull his wrist away from the keyboard and tightly grip it. He couldn't stop now. The longer he spent trying to do this, the longer it'd take before they could go back to the Cortex. The longer it took for them to get back to the Cortex, the longer it'd take to figure out how XANA had been re-activated. And the longer that took, the farther away they were from defeating him. Again.
He forced himself to continue typing, no matter how badly his knuckles were cramping and how horrible the shooting pain in the nerves of his wrists was. Really, he should have been used to it by now, right? With as many times as he'd done this, it should be nothing. But maybe that was in the beginning, when he thought coding and hacking and creating like this was no big deal. Oh, how naïve. Because now he was really feeling it. And it was starting to become too much.
He could barely move his back. Any way he turned his face twisted into a cringe. His shoulders were tenser than rocks, and his neck was the worst of all. He'd take small breaks and try and move his head and his joints around, circling them and doing anything to relieve the pain that was boiling over the top, but nothing provided even temporary relief.
He needed a break.
He didn't have time to take a break, though. So no matter how much his muscles burned and how badly his fingers throbbed, he wouldn't be able to stop. He had to keep pushing. Just a little bit longer, until he was finally done with this stupid Megapod. Then he could sleep. Maybe it'd only take a half an hour longer, an hour tops. So close.
Providing something didn't bug up and he'd have to start over. Again.
He grumbled once more and had to pull his hands away from the computer. He cracked his knuckles, intertwined and twisted his fingers and hands, stretched his arms out in front of him and behind his neck. But even that wasn't the worst.
It was the screen. The horrible, bright, blaring screen that practically burned straight into his retinas. For a while now, his head had been throbbing—but it was only getting worse. He tried to type as quickly as he possibly could, but when his fingers would stiffen up he would misspell a command, and that would only make him have to start all over. He could barely keep his eyes open any longer. Not even because he was tired—but because it hurt. He was getting another migraine. His temples were thrashing, his entire head ached so severely that he had to keep stopping to massage it even for only a few seconds, and there was such an intense, pounding pressure behind his eyes that he couldn't stare at the screen anymore.
He tried typing with his eyes closed, but it was too risky. He didn't want to type something so incorrectly that he screwed up and accidentally deleted the entire thing.
Just a little bit longer.
Again, though, he had to stop, hanging his head between his arms with his elbows rested against the hardwood desk and his fingers kneading against his drubbing skull. What time was it? He had just wasted fifteen minutes cracking his joints and rubbing his head. Fifteen minutes that could have been spent finishing this stupid vehicle. Okay, it wasn't stupid, though. It would potentially save his friends lives every time they went to the menacing new sector. And without it, they couldn't go there at all. Which meant they couldn't find out more about XANA, which meant they couldn't beat XANA… and so on, and so on.
He tried to force himself to finish up. He was almost there. Or, almost almost there, rather. But that was better than nothing at all, right? He could finish tonight. He could totally finish tonight.
No. He couldn't finish tonight.
Yes he could.
He forced himself to sit upright once more and rested his fingers against the keyboard, but he couldn't type even a single letter before a powerful surge dashed through the heaviness in his head and he actually cried out, his fingers balling into fists against the plastic keys glowing below.
He couldn't.
He couldn't do it.
He had to.
But he couldn't.
Jeremie threw his glasses onto the desk in frustration and collapsed against the keyboard that he had grown to loathe, his hands gripping and tugging at his frazzled blonde locks. His heart was pounding in sync with his migraine, and sweat was dripping from his nose and trickling behind his ears. He felt like a noodle. Physically empty, completely drained. He tightly shut his eyes, begging for the unbearable agony to fade away even just a little. And as he did so, they welled up the tiniest bit, with a tear daintily making its way down his burning cheek.
He just couldn't do it.