The piece of the Core turned out to be mangled beyond any attempts at analysis; Go was sure that there were parts of multiple Cores – at least two – welded together to make some sort of FrankenCore, but there wasn't enough left of it to verify his theory one way or the other. Rinna flat-out dismissed the idea that it was possible.
"Cores are highly personal," she said, leaning back in her chair. "They hold memories, programming, personality imprints."
"You're telling me things I already know," Go said, spinning his own chair around. He was sitting backwards in it, having rolled it across the floor to peer over Rinna's shoulder. "Besides, we've seen Roidmudes use more than one Core at a time."
"You can't just," Rinna gestured. "Glue them together and expect to get something viable out of it. The resulting Roidmudes didn't have cohesive enough programming to function with any sort of intelligence. From what I've heard, these clearly acted with some sort of agency. And those were whole Cores, not bits and pieces. I don't see how it could function at all, without at least one whole Core."
Go rested his chin on his folded arms. "But this one did."
"Which means it's impossible for it to have had parts of multiple Cores," Rinna said, and then stopped with her mouth slightly open. "Or at least highly improbable," she amended. "It would take an expert to pull something like that off. I don't think I could do it."
Go raised one hand.
"Neither could you," Rinna said, forestalling Go's comment before he could make it.
"Yes, I – okay, no, I probably couldn't." Go pushed his hair out of his face instead; it needed to be cut, but he hadn't had the time. "But it's possible."
"I just don't think it's likely," Rinna said, and that was the end of it.
Go turned the remnant of the Core over and over in his hands, wondering if Chase would have anything to say on the matter. Since the fight, Chase had been scarce; he'd either been working yet another new job, or looking for yet another new job, or he'd been sitting cross-legged on Go's balcony, face turned toward the sun in complete defiance of the early February cold.
Asking his opinion on the Core fragment seemed like a natural step, but Go hesitated in the entrance of his own apartment. Chase's shoes were neatly lined up against the step, and Go left his in the appropriate position next to them. It seemed inexplicably disrespectful to just leave them in the middle of the entrance the way he had before Chase had come back, despite the fact that it was Go's apartment and Chase was technically his houseguest.
"Does this look weird to you?" he asked, stepping through the kitchen and around the corner into the living room. Chase wasn't in the living room, although the kotatsu was radiating heat. The balcony door was cracked open behind the closed drapes; Go could feel the draft coming in. He opened the drapes, not wanting to wrestle with the door behind them, only to find Chase sliding the door open. Go backed up hastily, nearly tripping over the kotatsu.
"Go," Chase said, the corners of his mouth tugging slightly downwards.
"Sorry," Go said, on surer footing now. He'd promised not to invade Chase's personal space; promised himself, technically, and not Chase, but that didn't mean he was going to break his word. "Uh, this." He held up the piece of the Core.
"That was from the Roidmude that was destroyed," Chase said, correctly identifying the twisted bit of metal. Go expected nothing less.
"Do you think it's possible that parts of multiple destroyed Cores were fused together to make a functioning Core?"
Chase blinked at him, face absolutely blank. "Neither Krim nor Banno created a Core in that particular manner," he said finally.
"Well, no," Go said. "And they're both – well, Banno's dead, and Krim is in the belt and not making anything but that's beside the point. Do you think it's possible?"
"Under the right conditions, with the right equipment, and with enough expertise, such a thing might be done," Chase said slowly, as if he were carefully picking and choosing his words. "But it is not something I saw Banno do."
"I knew it." Go clenched his fist around the Core fragment and then let go hastily when the sharp edge bit into his palm. "Ow." It hadn't broken through the skin, and he dropped it onto the kotatsu. His phone chimed a text alert, and Go frowned at it.
"What?" Chase said, and Go stopped frowning at his phone.
"Kiriko wants us to go to a thing."
"What kind of thing?" Chase was still expressionless, standing in a way that reminded Go that he wasn't quite human, for all that he was trying to be.
"A work thing. A sort of work thing." Apparently the special investigation unit was trying to rebuild its bonds of camaraderie by holding an introductory meeting. Go was sure it wasn't so much a formal meeting as it was an excuse to drink with coworkers, which in theory he would have been excited about. "The department has us both listed as consultants."
Chase kept looking at him, not answering questions Go hadn't asked.
For his part, Go wasn't really feeling it; he had work lined up for the following day, and the aftereffects of the Mach transformation were still lingering. He didn't want to try and keep up with Shin and everyone else, particularly not when he usually would have been the one setting the pace. Still, he couldn't exactly refuse to show up. "Yay," he said, unenthusiastically.
"Your sister is very efficient," Chase said, and then the blankness slid off his face to be replaced by a perfect imitation of someone looking abashed at having forgotten something. "She asked me to tell you earlier. I did not mention it. I'm sorry."
"We all forget stuff once in a while, buddy," Go said, although now he could add irritation at Chase's lapse in memory to the repressed stew of emotion he didn't want to let out. He looked at the text again. "Whoops. It's not Kiriko wants us to go to a thing. We're already late."
The up side to the gathering was that it wasn't in the Drive Pit, which was a pain in the ass to get to without actually driving there. It was in a small restaurant close to a train station; Go deliberately left the Ride Macher parked and herded Chase onto the train instead, brushing off Chase's questions. Kiriko met him at the door, smile wide and bright.
"You made it," she said. She looked amazing, relaxed and happy in a different way than she had been since getting married. Go reached out and hugged her.
"Work is a good look on you," he said.
Kiriko eyed him speculatively. "Are you volunteering to babysit?"
"Uh." Go looked sideways at Chase, who appeared entirely oblivious to the conversation. "Maybe sometimes."
Kiriko laughed, a rare treat, and gestured both of them inside. The gathering was more or less in full swing, less formal than Go had anticipated. In rebellion, he'd worn soft brown corduroy pants and a t-shirt under his white jacket, although Chase had dressed a little more formally. Go wasn't out of place, as neither Rinna nor Kyu was wearing anything more formal than he was. Neither was Kiriko, for that matter; Go didn't think he'd seen her wear jeans since she was a teenager.
There was a general noise of welcome before drinks materialized in front of both Go and Chase; Chase simply looked at his and then at Go for clarification. Go shrugged, and Chase took one sip before making a face and requesting water against the backdrop of continued conversation.
"So," Kiriko said. "Everyone else already knows, but I'm going back to work in two weeks."
"You found a daycare," Go guessed. She'd been searching since before Eiji had been born, although she hadn't been able to start sending applications until he was three months old. "You're off the waiting list."
She poked his nose. "Got it in one," she said.
"Congratulations." Go sipped part of his own drink. "That means I don't have to babysit, right."
"Too late, you already volunteered," Kiriko teased, and Go looked at Shin for rescue. No help was coming from that quarter; Shin was utterly involved in some contest between Otta and Kyu. Go felt a knot inside him loosen slightly as the atmosphere sank in, and smiled back at his sister. He'd worked with these people the last time the Roidmudes had made trouble, even if it had been something of an antagonistic relationship, and he'd forgotten how much of a sense of camaraderie the special investigation unit had managed to create. It was nice to be part of it this time around.
Chase, on his other side, was the only part of the equation that Go was having trouble reconciling. He was going to ignore it, just for one night. He drained his glass and signaled for another one.
The floor tilted under Go's feet, and he felt Chase's grip on his shoulder tighten. He looked down, suspiciously, but Chase wasn't doing anything untoward. He was pushing Go back in what he clearly thought was the right direction, but he was wrong. If he kept it up, Go was going to slide right down the misbehaving ground until he hit the nearest wall.
"Hold still," Chase said, unlocking the front door. He'd gotten both of them home following the afterparty without incident, after Go had managed to get lost in the twenty meters between the karaoke box and the train station.
"You should have sung," Go said, trying unsuccessfully at first to get his shoes off. Second try was the charm, but the floor was slippery on top of the step and Chase hauled him upright again before pulling the door closed and locking it.
"I don't sing," Chase said absently.
"Singing is the point of karaoke," Go informed him. "That's why we went. For singing." He wasn't sure Chase believed him. "Also the drinking," he added. "But mostly the singing."
Chase wasn't paying attention to him, Go discovered. He was looking at his phone, scrolling up and down, and Go was irrationally disappointed. He shook Chase's arm off and navigated the treacherous hallway toward the kitchen. There was a coffee maker, and coffee was what came after drinking and karaoke, or he'd never manage to sleep properly.
The faucet refused to put water into the carafe, and Go frowned at it, clinging to the edge of the sink. The kitchen floor wasn't any more cooperative than the hallway had been; it kept trying to throw him sideways. He inched toward the coffee maker, carafe no more than half full. Chase plucked it out of his hands and put it down, without emptying the water into the tank where it belonged. That was no way to get the coffee made. "Hey," Go protested, several beats too late.
"What are you doing?" Chase asked.
"Obviously making coffee," Go said. He was losing the struggle with the floor. Chase steered him over to the single chair, moving Go's laptop out of reach and stacking the papers surrounding it on top of the laptop rather than leave them on the kitchen table. Go narrowed his eyes. "Those were in order," he said.
"If I make coffee, will you go to sleep?" Chase asked, both voice and face pained. Go felt a stab of guilt.
"You don't have to," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I fucked it all up." He'd ruined everything. He dropped his head onto the table, where it made a satisfying thunk and jumbled his thoughts into incoherence. He liked not having to think, and did it again.
"Stop it," Chase said, catching Go's forehead and pushing him back upright. His outline was blurred, and it was the most beautiful thing Go had ever seen. "You're going to hurt something," Chase was saying, and Go tore his eyes away from Chase's mouth.
"I wanted you to be alive. And happy. Definitely happy," he said, fixing his gaze on Chase's eyes. He couldn't get in trouble that way. Something burned in the corner of his eye, and he brushed it away. His fingers came away inexplicably wet.
"I'll make the coffee," Chase said, backing up, and Go had made it worse again.
He dropped his head on the table and left it there, so Chase wouldn't have to worry, and also wouldn't have to look at him. It was a nice table. Gray. Smooth. Full of table-ness, which Go had never considered to be a desirable quality before, but was in retrospect perfect for a table.
"Go?" The sound of a mug clinking down on top of the previously perfect table was loud, and Go looked up. Coffee had materialized out of nowhere, light and with a sweet undertone to its scent. He pulled it toward him and took a sip. It was perfect. Chase was crouching down, at eye level with him, face unreadable. It might have been worried, or annoyed. It was hard to tell.
"I want you to know," Go said solemnly, pushing the cup toward the wall. It wobbled, but stayed upright. "I want you to know that you are just as human as the rest of us. And I love you." His eyes burned again, and he rubbed them to make it stop. "You – you don't have to. You're normal. For a person. But I love you."
When he'd first seen Reiko, in the outside world, he'd serenaded her with a concert. Dancers. Fireworks. It had gone spectacularly wrong, and Kiriko had scolded him for going overboard instead of just honestly expressing his emotions. Trouble was, if he hadn't gone overboard, there would have been nothing for him to express. The emotional connection he'd felt with Reiko hadn't been romantic, as much as he'd wanted it to be, as much as he'd tried to make it be, after.
She'd seen through him, after a while. Not even a while. It hadn't taken long at all, and she'd been upset. Of course she'd been upset. Go couldn't blame her then, and he couldn't blame her now. He could have had a friend, if he hadn't been so hellbent on returning her obviously romantic affection to prove that there was nothing wrong with him.
"I don't think there's something wrong with you," Chase said softly, and Go realized he'd been speaking out loud.
"Of course there is," he said. The dizzying sway had settled into a buzz just underneath his skin and a persistent drag to one side, and Go rested his chin on his folded arms. "Good boys don't want to screw other boys. And I won't try, okay, you said no, and I'm not an asshole. It'll go away eventually. Just don't stop being my friend."
"Go," Chase said again, exasperated this time.
Go couldn't look at him; he pushed away from the table, nearly tripping over the traitorous floor in the process and closed the bedroom door behind himself, leaning against it. He stopped himself from sliding down to the floor by the thinnest of margins, walking forward until he hit something, and flopped face down onto the bed. The disorienting movement of the ground eased, but sleep was a long time coming.