Jeremy woke up with an ache in their back, having at some point rolled onto Michael's dingy basement floor carpet. They were spooning one beanbag chair as a second one halfway supported their head, and with reluctance they sat up and stretched. "Booting up," they said brightly, and by the time their joints had popped, the sleep was gone from their eyes and they were officially awake again.

"Someone's chipper," Michael said. He was a few feet away, playing something on his phone.

Jeremy almost took a look before they remembered the no-spying-on-Michael's-stuff rule and forced themselves not to pay attention. It was easier said than done, like being asked not to read a written sign that's in your peripheral. "Morning, Michael," they said, their hand fluttering up to their forehead. "Hold on, I know something happened last night but I have to download the data-"

"Don't bother." Michael looked up from his phone. "Turns out the PSAs are right. Alcohol isn't the answer to all my problems."

Jeremy snickered, but quieted as the memory data flashed through their mind. The entire right half of their body had been paralyzed, their verbal processing unit had gone on the fritz, and their wifi connection had completely dropped. It was hardly an ideal way to spend an evening. After rebooting, though, they had returned to normal functioning. More pressing was their memories of Michael freaking out, which Jeremy could now identify had been a panic attack.

"Are you coping?" Jeremy said, turning to Michael warily.

"I'm fine," Michael said with a shrug, looking back down at his game. There were grey circles beneath his eyes, and his posture was even worse than normal.

"Did you sleep last night?" Jeremy asked.

"Doesn't matter."

Jeremy sighed. "Michael…"

"Half your body stopped moving! It was freaky!" Michael protested. "What kind of friend would I be if I didn't make sure you kept breathing after that?"

"You pulled an all-nighter?" Jeremy said, shocked and more than a little touched. Michael had done that for them. Not for Jeremy 1.0, but for them. "Even though we have school this morning?"

"Shit. School!" Michael turned off his phone, standing to get ready for the day. "You can pay me back later. Hold back my hair the next time I get wasted."

"You'll have to grow it out first."

"I'll make you eat those words when I have a luxurious mane that you have to tie back at a college kegger," Michael said. "Now c'mon, let's go."

They both spent a few minutes hunting around for clothes that could fit Jeremy and were clean enough that Jeremy found them acceptable to wear in public. Michael's shoulders were much broader than Jeremy's even though Michael was shorter which meant that absolutely nothing fit. Michael's "good clothes" were few and far between-Jeremy tried on a polo shirt which Michael said had been worn on freshman picture day and never again, but it rode up on Jeremy's torso like a crop top. A long-sleeve sweatshirt was rejected for smelling like it hadn't been washed since May. When they put on one of Michael's many t-shirts, Jeremy was practically swimming in fabric.

Michael started out being amused, taking photos that he claimed were "prime blackmail material," but as time wore on and Jeremy acted pickier and pickier he began to get impatient.

"We're gonna be late," he said, picking up a rejected Pong t-shirt and changing into it, stripping off his red hoodie in the process and throwing it to Jeremy. "Just freaking skip the shirt."

Jeremy caught the bundle of fabric. "I'm pretty sure school is a 'no shirts, no shoes, no service' area."

"So what, you think the teachers are gonna be lifting up your top to dress code you? They've loved you ever since you got a SQUIP, c'mon." Jeremy opened their mouth but Michael interrupted, "And if you complain about the hoodie, we aren't friends anymore. Wearing it is a rare honor. Like riding a centaur."

Jeremy couldn't argue with that logic. Even if wearing Michael's hoodie was a fashion faux pas that would lower the student body's collective respect of Jeremy by 5.3 percent, it was also a tangible bond between the two of them. Jeremy was grasping at straws to strengthen Michael's trust in them, so they pulled the hoodie on over their bare chest.

Oh, shit. The hoodie was comfy to lean against when Michael wore it, but without a barrier of shirt fabric, Jeremy could tell how soft the hoodie was on the inside from years of constant wear. It clearly hadn't been washed in weeks so there was a little bit of BO that Jeremy wrinkled their nose at, but it didn't stop them from nuzzling their face into the nape of the hood when they and Michael set out into for a nippy walk to school.

"Comfy, huh?" Michael said to them. He was wearing a big puffy flight jacket with the NASA logo that was a few sizes too big, which he'd found at the bottom of his closet at the last second. "And warm. Like your own little cocoon."

Jeremy made a noise of agreement. "It's good," he said offhandedly. "Even if the cold keeps me running optimally." He stretched his arms to check the hoodie's fit. The sleeves rode up on their long arms, leaving their wrists exposed, but Jeremy could live with that.

"You're moving around okay now," Michael observed. "Do you know what happened to you last night?" He groaned. "I shouldn't have made you drink the wine. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Jeremy said, hushing Michael. "We would have had to do it eventually, right? Just to figure out how my system responds to alcohol. It's better it happened at your house than at a party or something."

"So how did your system respond?" They fell in step beside each other on the sidewalk, their steps crunching on the occasional dead leaf.

"You mean to ask why I was paralyzed and had trouble talking," Jeremy clarified. Michael nodded. "Let me look up a few medical databases. Searching the web."

"If you were just gonna go on Web MD, we could have done this at home last night."

"SQUIPs can diagnose ailments with 50 percent more accuracy than normal self-assessment," Jeremy recited. "Now shut it. I'm concentrating."

Michael mimicked Jeremy with an extremely inaccurate robot voice, "ShUT-it-I-am-CONcenTRAting. SQUIPs-are-FIFty-percent-more-acCURate-at-BEing-big-NERDS."

"Web search complete," Jeremy said flatly. "Did you want to hear the answer or did you want to finish your Alexa audition first?"

"This-HUman-MOCKerY-DOES-NOT-comPUTE." Michael started doing the robot right there on the sidewalk.

Jeremy crossed their arms, tapping their toes impatiently like a businessman waiting for a train. Michael got bored of the robot and jumped into the electric slide, which he went through a total of four times before deciding the joke was worn out and declaring, "I'm done now."

Jeremy rolled their eyes and started walking again, Michael at their heels. "Anyway. When I drank alcohol, my SQUIP shut down. That response was expected. When Jeremy drank at the Halloween party, his SQUIP did the same thing. However, Jeremy was able to keep functioning normally until the SQUIP came back online. There seems to have been a hardware change between then and now."

"A hardware change, like, your body's different?"

"It must be, since before all this, Jeremy wasn't able to do most of what I can physically do with other computers."

"A wireless charger wouldn't have charged him up," Michael said.

"Right," Jeremy said. "He couldn't control computers around him like I did at the mall. And my body's comfortable in temperatures that Jeremy's probably couldn't handle. But based on my memory of last night, the way my brain's wired has changed too." They gestured vaguely at their head. "Having your motor skills chopped down the middle like that isn't just a SQUIP side effect. It's called hemiplegia, and it's usually permanent. It can get caused by a stroke or other physical trauma."

"Wikipedia tell you all that?"

"No," Jeremy lied. "The side of your body that gets affected is opposite the side of your brain that's affected. My entire right side went offline," they said, shaking their right arm for emphasis and moving it across their body to hold the left side of their skull as they talked in order to demonstrate. "So that means there were some issues with the left side of my brain."

"I'm following so far," Michael said. "I've taken those personality tests before. I'm a right-brain person," he added. "Right-brain people are creative and fun. Left side is reasoning and doing math."

"Sure," said Jeremy patronizingly. "And you're also Sasuke from Naruto, and the sorting hat gave you Hufflepuff."

Michael retorted, "The sorting hat is a hack."

Jeremy grinned, quickly downloading the top 100 search engine results for "sorting hat personality quiz" and letting the SQUIP program auto-fill predicted answers on Michael's behalf. They averaged the scores in less than five seconds. "There is a seventy-two point nine percent chance that you would be sorted into Gryffindor," they agreed belatedly. "You're right. The official sorting hat website is flawed." Michael pumped a fist, vindicated, as Jeremy kept talking. "Much like Hogwarts sorting algorithms, human neurology is incredibly complex, which is why it took SQUIP developers decades to develop a functional interface that let SQUIPs be heard and seen by their hosts. You can't boil down even one process, like language, to one side of the brain."

"Oh yeah, language," said Michael. "You had trouble talking, not just moving. Even more than you'd expect if half your mouth wasn't working, I mean."

Jeremy made a humming noise, digging around a little more online. "Aphasia. What I had seems most similar to Broca's aphasia-my wires were crossed when I generated language output. In my case, the area of my brain that puts together sentences is also on my left side. I think?"

"You think?"

"Unless we go to a neurologist, this is my best freaking guess, okay?" Jeremy said, frustrated. "The left hemisphere of my brain didn't get injured like the symptoms lists would imply. None of the case studies on Google Scholar are showing someone waking up the next day feeling fine like I did. This could be anything. Maybe it's not even my left brain at all. Maybe it's a communication issue between the two sides of my brain like some version of split-brain syndrome."

"That's a computer term," Michael said helpfully.

"Might as well be! My fucking life as a teenage robot." Only one is mine. Only one is mine. Jeremy forced the tension to leave their shoulders.

"I'm not an expert either, but it sounds pretty simple to me," Michael suggested, seeing that Jeremy was done coming up with answers. "After you drank the Mountain Dew mixed with the Mountain Dew Red, your SQUIP took over most of the brain functions on your left side! So all your creative junk comes from Jeremy and your logic comes from the SQUIP." Michael sounded proud of himself for figuring it out until the words hung in the air and sunk into his brain. "...Wait, hold up. That would mean-"

"Trying to revert me back into Jeremy 1.0 would straight-up give me brain damage," Jeremy said, baffled. "That… is basically what happened when the wine shut my SQUIP OS down."

"Jeremy 1.0," Michael said. "That's what you call the old you."

"Which makes me now the new me. Jeremy 3.0." Jeremy craned their neck up, looking into the early-morning grayness of the sky. "Brain functions aren't split just into a logic side and a creative side-there's spillover. The SQUIP and Jeremy are both built into my new hardware system. I'd say I'm technologically enhanced: new and improved. But you don't think so."

"It's hard to know what to think," Michael said defensively. "If I'm not treating you like I would treat Jeremy, and if I don't talk to you like you're the SQUIP, but you're not someone entirely different either… It's just weird. You're weird."

"Thanks a lot," Jeremy said.

Michael backpedaled, oddly flustered. "B, b, but not bad weird, just, unique? It's not a crime to be different, like, uh! At least you're not trying to conform anymore?" he said weakly.

Jeremy watched Michael working himself up, analyzing what he was trying to communicate and trying to give him the benefit of the doubt instead of getting offended. The SQUIP was pretty good at cutting through the bullshit of social interactions to understand the motivations behind them, so Jeremy put two and two together quickly. They hummed, dropping their head to watch their converse sneakers moving underneath their body. Anything to keep them from staring at Michael. "I'm pretty bad at being Jeremy, huh?" they admitted.

"No, you're, it's just-" Michael started to contradict them but didn't get very far. "Yeah, you're not great at it," Michael said like he was giving up before adding wryly, "Not that he was much better."

"What do you mean?"

"He was always-" Michael gestured at nothing. "Trying on different hats. Acting like something he wasn't. Even before the SQUIP, he would go through these phases where he'd get super into something and reinvent his whole identity to revolve around it. Always desperate for some kind of reaction, some magic new skill or interest that would get people to start paying attention to him. My moms told me it's a normal part of being a teenager, to try a bunch of new stuff to figure out who you really are, but I haven't been doing that." Michael kicked a rock, watching it skitter away. "He'd be superhero-fan Jeremy, or theater geek Jeremy, or stoner Jeremy or computer coder Jeremy or movie buff Jeremy. But after a few days or a few weeks he'd burn himself out when he didn't get a reaction and he'd go back to just being my-best-friend-Jeremy.

"The only time it actually took was when the SQUIP was there and that doesn't count as being him." Michael looked Jeremy over, evaluating. "Right now you're cyborg Jeremy. It's only been a few days, I mean, it doesn't feel permanent. I keep thinking you're gonna revert to Jeremy-classic™." (He pronounced it like "tee-ehm.") "Like, two weeks from now, you're gonna call me up and say, 'wow, sorry about all that robot shit, lawl,' and then we'll smoke up in my basement like nothing ever happened."

"But after last night, you aren't sure," Jeremy guessed.

"I'm sorry," Michael said after a long pause, as though he was breaking tragic news to Jeremy. As if Jeremy hadn't realized all along that this SQUIP-related change was permanent. "Your brain is actually different now, and we can't turn it off without hurting you? I'm starting to think the Jeremy I knew is actually gone." Michael screwed up his face when his voice broke on the last word.

Jeremy didn't disagree, but it was hard to comfort somebody through such a weird form of loss. Their predictive algorithm didn't show any significant negative outcome from any specific reaction, so it was up to Jeremy to choose their own words. "Rich said he thinks Jeremy's dead," he said.

"But you're not, are you?" It took visible effort, but Michael cracked a smile and repeated what Jeremy kept telling him: "You're right here."

"Look at that! He can be taught!" Jeremy said triumphantly. They lowered their voice, slipping their hand into Michael's naturally. They slotted together like matched Tetris pieces, and Jeremy's palms didn't even get sweaty as they did it. "I may be analyzing this from an outsider's perspective, Michael, so correct me if I'm wrong. But it seems as though the only constant in all of Jeremy's changes so far has been you." They squeezed his hand. "You were with him through every phase, every new identity. Even when the SQUIP deleted you from his life entirely, you were there, waiting for him to come back to himself. And even now, when I'm not really Jeremy anymore, when I called for help, you came running." Raw honesty leaked through Jeremy's words. "From the moment I booted up, the only person I wanted was you."

Michael looked like he wanted to crack a joke to sidestep the mushiness, but his fingers only laced more tightly into Jeremy's. He wordlessly moved closer to Jeremy as they walked, leaning his head against Jeremy's shoulder for a few steps. Jeremy obliged, wrapping their right arm around Michael and tugging him close, their hand sinking into the airy puff of Michael's flight jacket. Michael hugged himself, his left hand seeking out Jeremy's right one again, and he rubbed his thumb in little circles against it. Michael's hand felt hot, but that probably just meant that Jeremy's skin was too cold.

They stayed like that for most of the walk to school. Jeremy's stride was longer than Michael's, so they weren't perfectly in synch, but that was fine. It was good.

"I wish we were on the same social network," Jeremy said, distracted by the hot feeling crawling up their body from Michael's touch. It radiated outwards from their fingers, tracing zigzags like circuits through Jeremy's thrumming nerves. Michael acted like he didn't feel it at all.

"You want me to get SQUIPped?" Michael was taken aback. "After all that stuff you said about preventing it?"

"No! No," Jeremy said. A social network had numerous benefits, including aligning two users' interests and goals without the chance for miscommunication, but it wasn't worth risking Michael's safety with a faulty SQUIP. "Never! I just… I want to connect with you." Jeremy's face overheated and they knew it was turning red.

"I think we're pretty connected already," Michael said. The school was coming into view, and by silent mutual agreement they broke their embrace before other students had a chance to see.

"Yeah," Jeremy said. They looked at Michael, fondness bubbling up hot in their ribcage, and disguised their aside glance by burying their face deeper into Michael's hoodie. "I guess we are."