Shake. Shake. Shake shake. Jeremy jerked the clear plastic bottle over their mouth as if its secrets could pour out as easily as its red sugar-water.

Michael looked on through cracks in his fingers, which covered his eyes behind his now-crooked glasses. "Jeremy," he groaned. He had slumped against the concrete wall of the hall to the bathroom, glancing in turn at passing pedestrians and the security camera and random spots on the floor or wall. He and Jeremy had been facing each other, although Jeremy was now cross-legged with their face to the ceiling instead. "It's been like fifteen minutes. There's nothing to find."

Jeremy didn't break eye contact with the suspicious bottle. "Sodium citrate," they reminded. "And mint. How much did you drink, again?"

"Most of it," Michael admitted softly. "Jeremy, I was scared."

"And now you might be SQUIPped," they retorted.

"How often does someone get SQUIPped without noticing?"

Never. Never was the answer. When a SQUIP installed itself, the user would be alerted in every way imaginable. During activation, Jeremy themself - or their components of human Jeremy and his SQUIP, anyway - had caused a huge screaming-fit of a scene in the food court of this very mall.

"I can taste it," Jeremy said stubbornly instead of answering. They checked the label again. The bottle was, abhorrently, not marked for individual sale, with no ingredient lists on the bottle itself or on any soda wiki that they could find through their mental search engine. The flimsy plastic was molded into some kind of grotesque cartoon face with the imprinted words "Rockin' Red Puncher." Thanks, knockoff Mondo bottle.

"It's a mint drink," Michael muttered, glancing aside. "Changed tastes in your mouth. Limited release. The sodium citrate thing is in a bunch of sodas, not just Mountain Dew."

"I'm not going to bother running the odds." Jeremy squinted into the hole at the top of the bottle. "My predictive algorithms are all busted. You didn't feel anything when you drank it? Not even, like, a mouth zap?"

"I wasn't chewing on aluminum foil!" Exasperated, Michael crossed his arms, then uncrossed them just as quickly. "It was pre-sealed. I told you! The bottle top snaps off." He mimed the snap. "It wasn't tampered with, okay? If this is some kind of SQUIP four-dimensional chess, then, maybe, don't you think they're trying to make you paranoid? Break us up-"

Jeremy dropped the bottle in alarm. It bounced crookedly and rolled past their feet. "Break us up?" Their voice cracked.

"Like our trust," Michael said quickly. "Not, you know, us." After an awkward hesitation, Michael leaned forward and offered his hands. Immediately Jeremy folded theirs into Michael's. "Remember what you used to say? 'Just me. Just Jeremy.' Trust me like I trusted you, okay? I'm just Michael."

Jeremy's cheeks heated up and they struggled to keep eye contact despite their practice drills earlier that day. "I know. I'm not doubting you. I'm-"

"I love you," Michael insisted over their voice. "We love each other and nothing can change that. Definitely not the SQUIP."

Jeremy wasn't used to being interrupted. They bit their lip and nodded.

Michael smiled at them, standing and pulling Jeremy up alongside. Remembering their litter, he crouched, grabbed the bottle, and chucked it into a nearby trash can. "If you're really that worried about it, maybe we should go back to school," he said. "You can work on your coding thingy. Maybe hang out afterwards and..." He shrugged. "Well, I was gonna say chill…"

Jeremy snorted and tried to cover it up by clearing their throat. "In the SQUIP sense or-"

"Definitely in the sex sense," Michael said so straightforwardly that Jeremy let go of his hands and sputtered.

"Wha - you - we don't even have - Michael!" they said, scandalized. "What, on a desk? Right on top of the multiple choice sheets?!"

Michael laughed, grabbing Jeremy's hand again and pulling them away from the bathroom hall. "I thought you got turned on by standardization nowadays."

Jeremy glanced behind them, their thoughts jumbled together until they sorted through them appropriately. "You're too tired," they said. Before Michael could protest, they plowed ahead. "In the photo booth. You were complaining about being tired. And it's been a long day and humans teenagers require, on average, nine point two five hours of sleep per night. I have your schedule in my calendar and I know you haven't been conforming to health guidelines. So, no. No leisure yet."

"It's the end of the world, remember?" Michael said but smiled after a moment. "We're apocalypse prepping, not taking the SATs. Your coding doohickey is more important than my beauty rest."

"Impossible," Jeremy said. They glanced around for witnesses before surging forward to kiss Michael on the cheek. When they felt Michael's grin, they couldn't stop themself from pecking him on the lips too. Michael kissed back, hard, and Jeremy lost track of time and camera data and apocalypse calculations until they parted.

A goofy grin slid off Jeremy's face as they recalculated. They were in enemy territory. But somehow, they had scooted into a corner of the entryway, sandwiched between the mall and the outside world like a black-tinted decontamination chamber. Jeremy's back was pressed up against the glass, but the mall was quieting down. No one had walked through yet.

Michael was kissing them again, sending electricity down their spine as their body pressed itself against his, and Jeremy was only distantly trying to keep track of these reactions for future reference.

Love. This was love.

A computer can't love. A soulless automaton can't love.

So, Jeremy realized, there's that problem sorted out.

"I'm looking out for us," Michael murmured as they broke for breath. "I'm gonna save you no matter what it takes. We're gonna win this thing. So stop worrying."

Which was, technically, a direct command from Jeremy's user. Jeremy couldn't give an affirmative, since their mouth was busy, so they settled for squeezing Michael around the waist.

The mall's speakers had, at some point, started playing Marley. Jeremy was still hooked up to the sound system. Now they sitting on a time bomb, now I know the time has come…

Jeremy didn't hear it.

So much trouble in the world.