WARNING: LOW FUEL
Are you kidding me?!
Papyrus's fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in all sorts of familiar codes and shortcuts. "Come on." He growled at the screen. "You've got to have something left in there. Just a little?!"
WARNING: FUEL CRITICALLY LOW. AT RISK OF OVERHEATING.
"Seriously?!" Papyrus yelled, shoving the keyboard back into it's cubby. "There's nothing?! What am I even supposed to use? It's been ages since he's operated this!"
The machine did not reply.
Papyrus stomped over to the tank, glaring into the emptiness it offered. Completely dry, but that was to be expected, admittedly, as the tank was very small. After all, a little DT went a long way. But even after all this time, there wasn't even the slightest of fumes to get it kicking again? All he needed was ten minutes. Ten minutes. Maybe even five.
DT will get the machine running again. That was the only thing that would get the machine running again. There was a compartment for a soul and everything. But getting a soul for that was downright impossible and Papyrus knew it.
Well... it's not impossible...
But it did go against his morale in every way possible. He could never bring himself to harvest Chara's soul.
All he needed was a little DT. Just a little. But how on earth could he get 'just a little'? The machine only processed souls of complete DETERMINATION into fuel. Anything else mixed into it would confuse and mess up the machine, perhaps even damage it for good. That ruled out the stupid cat on the mountain, and all the souls of the Amalgamates, even if those weren't on the list in the first place.
It has to be pure.
Like Chara's, Papyrus's brain reminded him again.
Pap returned to the computer, bringing up the data he'd been looking at earlier. Last timelines accessed: 32; 37. Papyrus wandered to the search.
Input: timeline32/test1-find
Output: timeline0-grey
It was very specific. Papyrus had seen this plenty of times, and thought he'd finally figured it out. The old man had a couple of test runs before he'd fallen through it himself. Four subjects. Each subject had apparently ended up in the same zone; something called Timeline Zero, or the Gray Zone. It was one of the rarest timelines and it popped up randomly among reloads; at least, that's what the machine told him. An inconsistent mark on the chart, fading in and out of existence. And the worst part? Resets could not pull them from the Gray Zone. Once you were in the Gray Zone... you were stuck there for good.
Papyrus tried something.
Input: timeline37/test5/timeline0-grey. It took a moment for the information to be collected. Output: ERROR. ENTRY NOT FOUND.
He wasn't in the Gray Zone. So where could he be?
Input: timeline37/test5-find
A couple seconds of processing.
Output:...
ERROR
ERROR
ERROR
Papyrus jerked in surprise as the monitor began filling up with data, listing off thousands upon millions upon billions of codes while the monitor changed color frequently and began glitching up. An alarm began to blare and the computer froze, a big, bold ERROR filling up the entire screen. Behind the screen Papyrus could hear the computer whirring loudly, heating up excessively and even beginning to glow red and start to smoke. Papyrus leapt to the tower next to the machine, unplugging everything on the back all at once. The alarm silenced, but the picture didn't go away.
Papyrus quickly rushed to the computer and opened it up. Smoke poured out and several wires sparked with electricity. Pap jumped away when a jolt lashed out at him. It was fried.
Not only did the computer overload with information, it overheated and practically blew up. Papyrus dragged over a metal wastebin from the corner of the shed and dumped the monitor in. Looks like he'd be needing another computer.
And as for fueling the machine... it was back to the drawing board.