Something was wrong with Dakota.
Milo was terrified. He didn't know what was wrong. His head was hurting slightly, but Milo thought that was just lingering from when he'd been abducted by the Octalians. Milo's head had been bothering him since he got on the ship. When Milo had asked the alien commander about it, she only had a guess about what had happened. She didn't know a lot about Squips, but she said that it wasn't uncommon for alien technology to interfere with human technology.
Dakota may be from the future, but to Milo's knowledge Squips were definitely human in design. And Milo knew that there were things that could cause trouble for a Squip.
Milo felt horrible for awhile, thinking that whatever was going on with Dakota was his fault, but then he'd remembered how he had felt when they'd gone back to the past and ran into the pistachions again. Milo had barely been able to function at all. Now his head just barely hurt, but he somehow had a horrible feeling about this whole thing. Milo may be okay, but Dakota definitely wasn't, and Milo needed to figure out what was going on.
When Milo tried to communicate with Dakota, he wasn't able to get a clear answer. He just heard the voice that wasn't quite Dakota's say 'system reboot, please stand by'. Milo couldn't get any information from Dakota, so he had to go looking for the information himself.
Milo went into the kitchen, looking for his parents, but the only one he found was Dr. Doofenshmirtz. Milo looked around, as though hoping to see his parents ducking under the counters or hiding behind the door. Dr. Doofenshmirtz watched him curiously.
"What are you looking for?" Dr. Doofenshmirtz asked.
"My parents," Milo said simply. "I think Dakota's in trouble, and I want to go find him."
"Mom's out and Dad's still at work," Sara said as she came into the kitchen behind Milo. "If you're that worried about Dakota, I can drive you," Milo relaxed slightly. He would like that.
"We've gotta go," Milo grabbed Sara's hand and pulled her towards the front door. Before leaving he looked back towards Dr. Doofenshmirtz. "If our parents call or come back, can you tell them where we went?"
"Oh, yeah, I'll take care of it," Dr. Doofenshmirtz waved them off. Milo and Sara went outside and got into her car, which she always forgot to bring into the garage. Milo didn't know for sure where Dakota was, but he saw no problem with checking Cavendish and Dakota's apartment. If Dakota wasn't there, Milo would be able to figure out where to go next.
Sara followed Milo's directions to get to the apartment. The moment that Sara stopped the car Milo jumped out and ran up the steps to their apartment. Milo never really thought about entering someone's home without knocking or being invited first, but he was way too concerned about Dakota to worry about being rude.
Milo tried to open the door and frowned when it worked. Doors shouldn't be left unlocked. Milo went inside and immediately found Dakota lying on the couch. He looked like he was sleeping, but Milo knew that wasn't all. Something more was going on.
Milo went closer to Dakota and nudged his shoulder slightly. Milo immediately felt a spark go through his head. Dakota opened his eyes and just stared at him blankly. Milo wanted to say something, but anything he was planning on saying went away in an instant when he saw Dakota's eyes. Even when Dakota was wearing his dark glasses, Milo could tell that they looked much darker than usual.
Suddenly getting a sense of dread, Milo grabbed Dakota's glasses and took them off. What he saw made him feel nearly sick. Dakota had always had interesting eyes. One was brown, one was a kind of glowing orange. Now though, they were both a mix of the two colors. Dakota's eyes were both brown, except for just around the pupil, where it was orange, looking like electricity.
Dakota blinked and sat up. His expression was strangely blank, and Milo really didn't like it. "Milo Murphy. I apologize for any inconvenience, but the Squip system is still rebooting." Dakota's tone sounded really robotic and automatic. Milo didn't like it. This wasn't his friend.
"When will the reboot finish?" Milo asked. Dakota blinked and frowned slightly.
"Not sure," Dakota said. "It should be finished by now, but it's taking longer than usual?"
"Is it because of Murphy's Law?" Milo asked. "Or maybe it's because you're connected to both me and Cavendish, so that's two systems you're trying to work through at the same time?"
"Cavendish," Dakota's eyes flared slightly, similar to the way they did when he got particularly emotional, but the rest of Dakota's face was still practically emotionless. "Yes, there are some complications with Cavendish's systems. I can't reach them, and I don't know why." Dakota scowled, and though it was a little more emotion than he'd been showing before, it made Milo feel really uneasy. Whatever was going on with Dakota, it had something to do with Cavendish.
"Hey, Milo, is everything okay in here?" Sara asked as she entered the apartment. She stopped when she saw Dakota's scowl and Milo's unease. "What's going on?"
"I don't know," Milo looked at Dakota. "What caused your systems to reboot?"
"I...don't know," Dakota said slowly. "Your memories show that you had an encounter with aliens...oh," Dakota looked around in unease. "I remember, Cavendish claimed to have seen an alien abduction. That must have been you,"
"Did the alien technology cause this?" Milo asked cautiously. Dakota shook his head.
"No, it messed with the systems, but otherwise it was harmless," Dakota said. "Something else caused the reboot. Considering I can't connect with Cavendish's systems, it was probably on his end." Milo felt absolutely horrible about it, but his first assumption was that Cavendish had done something horrible, and that he'd done it on purpose. Milo liked Cavendish, and he didn't want to assume the worst of him, but he'd already hurt Dakota really badly. Who was to say that he hadn't done it again in an attempt to do what he thought was the right thing?
"Did you two have another fight?" Milo asked.
"I don't know," Dakot said. "My memories from yesterday are all over the place. Your Squip was interfered with, because of the aliens, and Cavendish...Cavendish." Dakota's eyes sparked again. "Something's cutting into my connection with him, and it's confusing my connection with you. I need to cut my connection with him."
Milo looked at Dakota uneasily. "You're just cutting it...just like that?" When Dakota had temporarily paused his connection with Milo, he had asked about it first, made sure that it was okay first. It really bothered Milo that Dakota wasn't asking Cavendish about it first.
On its own, Dakota not asking permission wasn't that big a deal, but when combined with how Dakota's eyes looked now, and his weird, just shy of monotone way of speaking, it was just another sign that something was really wrong.
"What...what's wrong with you?" Milo asked quietly. Dakota looked at him sternly and Milo felt stiff and uncomfortable under his gaze. He really didn't like this.
"Milo, you can't just say something like that," Sara scolded him. Dakota didn't seem bothered by the question, which just bothered Milo even more.
"Nothing's wrong with me," Dakota said evenly. "Actually, I'm better than I've ever been." He definitely didn't sound okay, let alone better than ever. "My systems were flawed before, but the reboot was just what I needed."
Milo froze. "I...what?" Milo was scared, almost as scared as he'd been when he'd learned that Cavendish had turned Dakota's systems off. "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean," Dakota looked unamused. "My systems aren't perfect right now, and unfortunately they may never be, but the reboot has at least calmed my glitchy systems."
"But...your defectiveness made you you," Milo objected. "I don't want you to be different."
"I'm still me, Milo," Dakota said, though Milo was unconvinced. "I'm just not as flawed. Not as emotional."
"Emotions aren't a bad thing," Milo said desperately. Dakota just blinked.
"Computers aren't supposed to have emotions," Dakota said. "If they did, I imagine you would refuse to have a cellphone, considering how easily they break for you,"
"That...that's different," Milo felt slightly ill at the thought of all of the computers and other technology that regularly malfunctioned around him being alive and having emotions. Dakota was right, Milo would be really hesitant to even think about going anywhere near anything technological if he thought he could hurt anybody.
"How?" Dakota asked. "Is it because I can talk? Because I look human?"
"No, I just...I don't know," Milo was feeling more and more uncomfortable the longer he was talking to Dakota. He didn't like this at all.
"Okay why don't we all just calm down," Sara put a hand on Milo's shoulder reassuringly. She looked at Dakota. "I'm sorry, he's just scared,"
"Oh, I know how Milo feels," Dakota says. "I'm in his mind,"
"He's just...used to you being a certain way," Sara continued. She was being much calmer about everything than Milo was.
"People change," Dakota said. "And computers upgrade,"
"Can't you just change back?" Milo asked.
"You...want me to be defective?" Dakota aske, for the first time showing emotion. He actually looked confused.
"I want you to be back to normal," Milo said. "And I mean your normal, not Squip normal,"
"I'm not Squip normal," Dakota said. His eyes flared orange slightly. "My programming is all mixed up and in the wrong order." Dakota closed his eyes and put his hands in his pockets. "No amount of reboots will fix me completely."
"You don't need fixing," Milo began to say, but Sara interrupted him.
"What if you get someone to look at your programming?" Sara suggested. "Computers get reprogrammed all the time, you just need someone who knows what they're doing."
"People in this time period don't understand Squip technology," Dakota said. His eyes widened at the same time as Milo thought of something. Milo didn't know just which of them thought of the idea first.
"Maybe Dr. Doofenshmirtz can figure out how to go through your programming," Milo said eagerly. "He can fix this."
Dakota fixed Milo with a stern look. "Fix what my reboot did, or fix what my reboot couldn't?"
"...Fix what your reboot couldn't," Milo said. As far as he was concerned, it wasn't a lie. A reboot really couldn't fix something that wasn't actually broken.
Dakota sighed. "Do you want me to get fixed by Doofenshmirtz?" Milo paused at that question. He'd heard extremely similar questions from Dakota before. Milo always hated it when Dakota asked what he wanted from him, because that wasn't what Milo wanted. Dakota was supposed to be his own person. Milo thought they had gotten over the whole Dakota basing his desires off of what Milo wanted.
Still, Milo was positive that Dakota, at least, his Dakota, wouldn't want to be like this. Maybe this rebooted Dakota was back to asking what Milo wanted, and it may be wrong to take advantage of that, but if it got his friend back, was it really that bad?
"Yeah," Milo said quietly. "It's what I want."
Dakota's face slipped into a slight grin. He was looking more and more like his old self, but Milo still felt uneasy about it. He didn't know if this was Dakota actually expressing himself, or if he was just putting on a mask because he knew this was how Milo felt most comfortable with him. "Then let's give this a try."
Dakota followed Sara and Milo out to the car. Milo quickly made his way to the seat in the front, right next to Sara. Milo usually liked to sit with his friends, but he felt uneasy being so close to Dakota right now, or even talking to him. To avoid striking up conversation, Milo got out his cellphone and called the house.
"Hello?" Doofenshmirtz answered almost immediately.
"Hey, Dr. Doofenshmirtz, we found Dakota," Milo said. "He's having some system issues though. Do you want to take a look at him?"
"Look at the programming of a time traveling super computer?" Milo could hear the grin in Dr. Doofenshmirtz' voice. "You don't even have to ask. Bring him over."
"Thanks," Milo said appreciatively. "We'll be back in a few minutes,"
"I'll be in the lab," Doofenshmirtz said, speaking of the shack in their background. It used to serve as an office for Milo's mom, but since Doofenshmirtz had started staying with them, it had become his space.
Doofenshmirtz hung up with a proper goodbye, like he did half the time. He frequently seemed to forget his phone manners, but Milo didn't really feel like trying to correct him.
Without having Doofenshmirtz to talk to and distract him, Milo was forced to confront the elephant in the room, or the Squip in the van.
'You don't have to try to talk to me,' Dakota's voice said in his head. Milo's eyes widened in alarm and he looked behind him to see Dakota staring at him blankly. 'I know you don't like me right now.' Milo flinched. He felt a little weird around Dakota right now, but it wasn't as thought he actually didn't like him, he just missed the old Dakota.
'I just feel like I don't know you,' Milo thought back.
'That's fair,' Dakota responded, and that was it. Nothing more was said for the rest of the drive. Milo felt awkward and anxious, and he knew that Sara was worried about him, but that nervousness went unspoken. When they got back to the house, Milo took a deep breath and got out of the car. He led Dakota to the backyard.
"Dr. Doofenshmirtz, we're here," Milo called out as he went to the shed and pushed the door open. Doofenshmirtz was there, pushing boxes aside and making room.
Doofenshmirtz looked up, focusing his excited gaze on Dakota. "Alright, what's going on here?" Doofenshmirtz didn't seem nearly as upset about this new development as Milo was. This could be because Doofenshmirtz just didn't know the full extent of Dakota's new behavior, but Milo had the feeling that it was more because he was fascinated by the very concept of working with a Squip.
"Dakota's not acting like himself," Milo said. "He says he's been rebooted, and that it 'fixed' some of his glitchiness, but his glitchiness was what made him Dakota, and I just want him back to normal," Milo said. Dakota glanced at Dakota out of the corner of his eye, looking very annoyed. It took Milo a moment to realize that he'd told Dakota that they were going to Doofenshmirtz specifically to fix his glitchiness, not bring it back. Milo couldn't bring himself to be apologetic though. He needed his friend back. He wasn't going to be sorry for that.
"Do you think you can help?" Milo asked.
"I'll see what I can do," Doofenshmirtz said. "I'll do my best to not cause him to self-destruct." It sounded like a joke, but Doofenshmirtz said it so seriously that Milo felt more unnerved than earlier.
"Yeah, please don't blow Dakota up," Milo said uneasily. "I'll, uh, leave you to work," Milo began to step back towards the exit. Doofenshmirtz watched him curiously. Dakota didn't even look at him.
"You don't want to stay and help?" Doofenshmirtz asked.
"Maybe later," Milo said with a small smile, but the thought of working with them made him feel a little ill. He didn't actually want to mess with Dakota's systems, and he didn't want to be around this Dakota that was almost like a shadow of the Dakota that he knew. Milo just wanted his friend back, and hopefully Doofenshmirtz could help to bring him back.
A/N: This chapter feels really weird. The whole basis of the chapter is Milo has noticed how different Dakota is, but I feel like I didn't actually show just how different Dakota is. It's a little hard to show how Dakota's thought process is different when the chapter's not in his point of view, so hopefully it works okay and doesn't feel like Milo is making a big deal out of nothing.
I'm also a little worried that Milo is out of character, but while he's a really kind and open-minded kid, he's still just a kid. It can be really terrifying if someone you know suddenly starts to act like someone that you barely recognize.
Also, you know, we're back to that reoccurring theme of everybody treating Dakota like someone who isn't really human.
