"EEEAAARRG!" Marik howled, and his fist disappeared between the Pharaoh's eyes.
Atem's face became a wash of pixels.
"Say his name!" Marik screamed at the reforming hologram.
"Marik, this isn't helping me reprogram his vocal responses," Ryou's voice called down from the speakers in the simulation room. He was currently in the control room, trying to access the files on his thumbdrive, files that contained new subroutines that should make Holo-Atem recognize and respond to Yugi Mutou.
"Yes, but it's helping me," the Yami shot back acidly. He was panting, his chest aching and his arms sore. He'd been theoretically beating the shit out of Atem for the better part of a half hour.
"Are we really going to keep playing this charade, Kaiba?" Holo-Atem leveled Marik with an exasperated expression, and crossed his arms over his chest.
"His name is Yugi!" Another brown fist flew through Atem's face. "Say it, you righteous bastard!"
"He isn't going to call you, Yugi," Ryou sighed. "My program is designed to recognize the actual Yugi... if it works." He added under his breath.
Marik drove another fist into Atem without any actual prompting from the hologram. This time it went through his collar bone. He watched in pleasure as the Pharaoh's chest dissolved into a mess of pixels. There was something cathartic about all this, even if he wasn't getting to rearrange the face of the real Pharaoh.
"You said the program would recognize Yugi's name," he called up. Marik straightened to take in some much needed breaths. There was going to be sweat stains on his work uniform, and he was going to have to take it home to wash it tonight.
"That doesn't mean I've actually gotten it to work," countered Ryou. "I'm not much of a programmer, and there's still a ton of bugs."
A sudden whoosh sounded behind Ryou, nearly making him bolt from the high-backed chair.
Today was a holiday; they should have had the Sim Room all to themselves. And yet someone had just entered the control room. Not that many people had access keys to this room. He mentally braced himself and whirled around to face whoever had just entered.
Mokuba Kaiba stepped into the dimly lit room clutching a travel mug of coffee and an iPad under one arm. "What are you guys doing in here?" His eyes flickered from Ryou, to the console, and then to the scene in the Simulation room below, where Marik had resumed throwing punches at the synthetic and quite insubstantial Pharaoh.
"Familiarizing ourselves with the ins and outs of the programming," Ryou laughed nervously. While he said this he attempted to put his body between Mokuba and the monitor with windows still open and accessing his thumbdrive files.
"Fucking say Yugi, you bitch!" Marik's wail of rage blared in over the speakers. "Yu-gi! Your host? Your light? Your little boy toy?"
"Y-y-uuugi?" Atem's baritone voice skipped a few times and crackled with static.
"That's what you finally recognized? Boy-toy?" Marik barked in equal amounts of amusement and disgust.
"C-can he he-he-hear me?" Atem's voice fizzled with static, and continued to skip akin to an old CD player.
"Huh," Ryou adjusted his reading glasses and leaned over the console, using his finger to open one of the files. "I don't remember including that one." He puzzled over the web of different response scripts. The file was massive, but definitely not as vast as the scripts Kaiba had programmed Atem to already use.
"Are you guys altering my brother's program to recognize Yugi?"
Ryou was reminded that the youngest Kaiba brother was still in the control room, and was now standing beside him, scrutinizing the monitor over his shoulder.
"Yes...?" He shrank into Kaiba's chair. Which wasn't that difficult because it was entirely too large for him. "Kinda? The subroutine isn't really working properly."
"Do you want help?" Mokuba placed his coffee on the console and perched on the arm of the chair.
"Really?" Ryou brightened at the question. "Are you offering?"
Somewhere down below Marik was howling again and throwing fists with the hologram once more. He looked like a manic demon that was enjoying himself waaay too much. Ryou didn't have the heart to stop him. This was a side of the Yami he barely even glimpsed, and if Mokuba hadn't been there he might have spared a moment to admire Marik's crazed fit of energy.
"Sure," the younger Kaiba brother replied. "I take it you caught Yugi sneaking in here too?"
Ryou nodded somberly, remembering the way the King-of-Games spoke to the hologram of Atem. How holo-Atem had obliviously addressed Seto Kaiba, and how Yugi had eventually broken down into tears. It still tore at his heart in the worst way.
"Are you any good at programming?" Ryou asked.
"You're kidding, right?" Mokuba sniggered at him. "My elder brother is Seto Kaiba. Of course I'm good at programming. I wouldn't be assistant CEO of this company if I wasn't." He pulled up his iPad and unlocked the screen. Fingers flew over the device as he began typing furiously. "Send me access to those files, I'll have a look and see if I can't find the bugs."
Ryou turned back to the monitor, opening a window and dragging the files off his thumbdrive into a sharing folder with Mokuba on the KC network. He watched as they began to download.
"Your brother won't get mad?" He asked.
"Pfft. Let him get mad. He should have done this himself months ago."
Ryou didn't want to point out that that would require Seto doing something thoughtful for someone else. Something hideously out of character for the egotistical CEO. Instead he asked, "how come you're here anyway? Isn't today a holiday?"
Mokuba made an about face, and settled on a lopsided smile, "when your brother is the boss, no day is a holiday."
Ryou could only scrunch his nose at that.
As the files transferred his gaze drifted back down to the crazed Yami who was currently trying and failing to claw the Pharaoh's eyes out. He propped an elbow on the console, resting his chin in his hand to watch over the top of his glasses. A fond sigh escaped him. And despite himself, a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.