Chapter summary:

Picture this! Nobody cares if a classmate is in the hivemind; at this rate the SQUIP is spreading through the state and going viral. Just don't let yourself spiral 'cuz you're helpless, helpless, and you're almost hopeless.

In Jeremy's study hall, the usual teacher was replaced with a substitute. Normally, the teacher was a micromanaging strict middle-aged guy with a white beard who hated noises. The replacement didn't seem entirely mentally present, ruling over the classroom with a firm attitude of "I don't get paid enough to deal with you." They had a thick romance novel planted on their desk and were clearly eager to dig into to it. Jeremy watched them carefully as they instructed the class to talk quietly amongst themselves or do homework for the whole period.

Was the original teacher out of class because someone had offered them a SQUIP and they'd abruptly decided to pursue a career at Harvard? Or was this substitute a plant from the SQUIP social network? Were they a fake teacher who would offer them snacks in-class and SQUIP all the students?

Jeremy could see why Michael loved those conspiracy documentaries. Once you started suspecting everything around you of being faked, it was hard to stop.

The teacher didn't offer everyone a cup of Mountain Dew, so Jeremy had no proof either way and forced themself to relax. At least this gave them an opportunity to talk to Rich unimpeded.

A couple kids were milling around without any reprimand from the sub, so Jeremy stood up and borrowed a seat in the corner, locking eyes with Rich and giving him the silent command to follow.

Jeremy was almost surprised when he actually complied, dragging a chair up to Jeremy's new desk with a metallic squeal. Rich plopped on it backwards, crossing his arms over the back. "Got something on your mind, Not-Heere?"

The new nickname made them grimace even more than the lisp. Maybe it would be a good pun if they hadn't gone through so much trouble convincing Michael that they were, in fact, Jeremy Heere. "You already heard?"

"Michael sent me the video file last night at like 3 AM."

Jeremy sighed, propping their elbow up on the desk and leaning two fingers against their temple. They were planning to tell Rich about Christine, not about anything Michael had recorded. "You're jumping to conclusions again, and as usual, it's the wrong one. Take a cue from Christine and put a little effort into communicating, Rich."

Rich almost retorted, but threw up his hands and made to get up from the chair instead. The conversation wasn't worth it to him.

"No-wait-!" Jeremy dropped the bored expression. "This is important!"

"Not so important that you stop talking like a jackass, though," Rich said petulantly, but he eased back into the chair. "What did you need to tell me?"

Jeremy scanned the room and lowered their voice. "Someone else in the school has a SQUIP."

"All right…" Rich dragged the word out. "That's it?"

"What do you mean that's it?" Jeremy whispered harshly. "At lunch, Christine kept trying to get Michael to eat her food and we found a SQUIP inside!"

Rich shrugged. He seemed completely unaffected by the news.

"I can't believe you," Jeremy said. "You're the guy who had a SQUIP for the longest, you know what it does to people-and I get that you don't have a single neuron's worth of self-preservation left in that empty head, but if someone else gets taken, you still don't give a damn, do you? Christine, Michael-"

"Or you?" Rich said in low tones.

"That's different," Jeremy said. They straightened their collar reflexively, although instead of a crisp collar leaf, they only found the soft jersey fabric of Michael's hoodie. "I'm immune."

"You're not fucking immune, you moron," Rich said, clutching the plastic lip of his chair. "They already got you. That's the opposite. And I already told you how I feel about that." He waved toward Jeremy. "I don't get how Michael can buy your act when every freaking second you've got that-perfect posture, and your dumb power stances, and you don't even have Heere's voice anymore."

"I have my voice," Jeremy said, relaxing their shoulders and dropping their hands to look more casual in defiance.

"I mean his v-v-v-voice," Rich said. "SQUIPs think they can fly under the radar but that's a dead giveaway." He tapped on Jeremy's desk twice and leaned in. "I already knew about Christine. I saw her this morning. You know how her voice gets super loud in homeroom when she's talking to her deskmate and the teach has to ask her to stop three times before she finally shuts up?"

Jeremy didn't have homeroom with Christine, but they nodded anyway. That sounded like her. "She was quiet today?"

"Freaky quiet. I saw they were talking but I didn't hear her from across the room. I swear to God that the other girl got half the words in edgewise."

Jeremy sucked their breath in through their teeth. "It's because of her SQUIP's new directive."

"How the fuck would you know that?"

Jeremy talked even quieter, wary of being overheard, with their head leaned in towards Rich's. "Every SQUIP has one goal that dictates all its behavior. For Jeremy, the goal was to get popular. For you, your SQUIP's goal was to earn you respect. When Christine was SQUIPped at the play, she was exhausted from having the responsibility of making all her own decisions, and Jeremy had been distracted from his goal of being popular by pining after her, so her SQUIP's goal was to obey Jeremy no matter what."

Rich reeled back. "Oh fuck. Fuck, that's gross!"

Jeremy shook their head, answering Rich's wordless question of did Jeremy do something he shouldn't have. "Respect for user's autonomy wasn't taken into consideration by the coders. It's something to address during the upgrade. Based on what she's been saying, though, Christine's new primary goal is to encourage communication. She kept harping on it during lunch. I think her SQUIP has convinced her that good communication will get rid of all her bullying issues."

"Not to mention that it's why you guys' relationship took a nosedive," Rich said dryly. How did Rich even know about that? "Who's fault is that, again?"

"Everything's my fault, Rich," Jeremy said, sweet as sugar. "All your life problems? All your rotten personality? Go ahead and blame it on that mean ol' SQUIP."

"Thanks, I'll file that with the other invaluable life advice I've gotten from robots." Rich mimed crumpling up a piece of paper and chucking it in the trash bin. "Are we really not gonna talk about the video file?"

"Are you talking about the recording of me drinking wine that Michael took with his phone?" Jeremy kept the discomfort from showing on their face. There were personal moments on that file.

"Yeah," Rich said, and like he sensed Jeremy's thoughts, added, "He fast-forwarded through a lot of it though, and it cut off after he asked you a bunch of questions. He didn't show me film of your secret make-out sesh."

Jeremy didn't respond to the teasing. "So you already know that my decisions aren't being dictated by the SQUIP," Jeremy said, annoyed. "It's not controlling me."

"Maybe you don't remember," Rich said. "But you specifically called yourself a SQUIP even when it was off. That doesn't strike you as fucked up?" Rich looked haunted. "It's in you so deep right now, even booze can't shut it off."

"The SQUIP is software, Rich. Not a person. My SQUIP software wasn't on last night."

"How can you say that?" Rich said. "How can you say the SQUIP's not a person after what you've become? After you got a fucking personality transplant from it?"

"You lived with a SQUIP for years," Jeremy said dismissively. "Surely even you would have noticed that, despite having a human avatar, the SQUIP has no personality beyond what its programming dictates."

"If I'm the SQUIP expert, then you oughta be listening to me about it," Rich said. "User feedback. I know what to expect from that fucker in the long-term. I don't know what kind of nanotechnology magical bullshit is causing it, but my SQUIP was a person. You seriously don't remember your SQUIP showing any emotion besides cool detachment?" The SQUIP absolutely showed emotion, even in Jeremy's limited memories. It liked to taunt Jeremy, but it got excited with him when they made progress on their plans, and it got annoyed when Jeremy wasn't complying properly.

"Giving the appearance of emotion is part of normal SQUIP protocol," Jeremy said. "It's part of the user interface."

"You think I don't know the difference between a SQUIP and my Google homepage?" Rich said. "For a SQUIP you don't know shit about how you operate."

"Yes, let's see, who to trust? The code my programmers spent years on, or the little boy with a bootleg SQUIP who had a temper tantrum the moment he was left unsupervised?" Jeremy had slipped back into the squared-shoulders, looking-down-their-nose posture that felt natural around Rich. "Tough decision."

Rich scoffed. "I can tell you ten things about SQUIPs you won't find in any computer code, easy."

"Oh?" An idea sparked in Jeremy's brain. Rich's user data was more extensive than Jeremy's, and he didn't seem to suffer from any memory data corruption like Jeremy did. His information could be useful for Jeremy's new goal of upgrading the SQUIP. Like Rich had just said, user feedback was important. From a human user's perspective, Rich was the biggest SQUIP expert around, if only he could make himself useful.

They calculated the best way to get Rich to agree to the project that they made up on the spot. It wouldn't be hard. They leaned back, oozing punchable confidence. "Everything a SQUIP is is contained in its code. You can't tell me anything I don't already know."

"You wanna bet, smart-ass?"

"Name the stakes," Jeremy said, tilting backwards carelessly in their chair.

"Ten things about SQUIPs you didn't know already. I find them, I get…" Rich rolled the idea around in his mind. "Let's make it simple and say you gotta obey orders from me for a week straight. If I lose, I do what you say for the week. If I feel like you're lying about it, the deal's off."

Jeremy's heart started pounding. They would be intending to lose this bet, after all, in the hopes that Rich would be able to point out some unique glitches and issues with SQUIPs that Jeremy didn't already know. That would come at a price of subjecting themself to Rich's poor judgment for an entire week. That was more time than this version of Jeremy had been in existence.

What kind of things would Rich make them do? Rich hated Jeremy 3.0, but he'd been civil so far. He wouldn't make Jeremy hurt themself or anyone else, would he? No, probably not. Even if he did, if Jeremy complained to Michael, Michael would probably intercede.

Still, taking orders and following directives, powerless to argue… Jeremy felt a weird thrill. If only this bet was with Michael instead. It was a bizarre thought, not making much sense in context, but they had the sudden urge to do push-ups.

They stuffed the confusion down, not letting it show on their face. Emotional repression was their strongest talent. "What time frame are we talking? I'm not giving you forever to come up with something."

"A week? Two weeks to be safe," Rich said. "I gotta get a list going."

"You're on," Jeremy said, extending a hand. Rich took it, and Jeremy pumped it twice, though they tightened their grip afterwards instead of letting go. "Though you know what else that means?"

Rich looked at their linked hands with trepidation at the dawning realization that he'd gotten suckered into something. "What's that?"

A wolfish grin sprung up on Jeremy's face. "That you can't get a SQUIP for three weeks minimum."

Rich spluttered, yanking his arm back. "I don't want to get SQUIPped! Is that seriously what you got from what we talked about at the mall, that I'm just super fucking eager to get my brain shut off?"

"No," Jeremy said, crossing their arms smugly. It made the fabric of Michael's hoodie fluff and bunch up, giving Jeremy more of a roosting-bird impression than they were going for. "But you've been taking that risk. The rule I gave to Michael is the only thing that kept him from getting SQUIPped this morning. If you plan on winning our bet, you have to do the same."

"That thing where he only eats pre-sealed foods?" Rich's brow furrowed. "That's a pain in the ass. Not worth it."

"Really?" Jeremy said. "Are you throwing in the towel already? That was easy. I guess my week of control starts now. The first thing I'll have you do-"

"No!" Rich jumped up from the desk with such force that he almost knocked it over. People stared. "No way, I can win this stupid bet with my eyes closed!"

Jeremy smirked.

Rich added, "But I'm not gonna do whatever random bullshit you say I have to. If I have to only eat certain stuff, then you gotta…" He lowered himself to his seat again, humming. "You gotta not talk to anyone who has a SQUIP until the bet's over."

"So I can't call up Christine," Jeremy said, not impressed.

"Yeah, I can't have you comparing notes about how SQUIPs work. That'd be cheating. See? I can justify nonsense rules too."

"I wasn't planning to go to her house after school after she almost took over my best friend's brain," Jeremy said.

Rich eyeballed them, evaluating whether Jeremy was telling the truth. "So you can't go make a circuit with Christine-" He made the finger-in-a-hole motion with his hands, as if there was any doubt about what he was implying. "And I gotta stop sharing spaghetti with Jake at Sbarro's. Sounds like a fair trade."

Jeremy got a mental image of that scene from Lady and the Tramp, starring Rich and Jake respectively. "If you were dating Jake Dillinger," Jeremy said blankly. "The whole school would know about it."

"I'm discreet," Rich said with a wink.

"You are the least discreet person I have ever had the displeasure of meeting," said Jeremy. "When you come over to my place with your list, if I hear a single rumor that we're fucking, I'm SQUIPping your pasta myself."

"Woah, what? You're inviting me over?" Rich was overplaying his astonishment but Jeremy got the feeling that he was at least a little genuinely surprised.

"Unless you wanted to trade notes next to the urinals again," Jeremy said with annoyance. "I don't feel like creeping around avoiding your drunk daddy."

Rich made a weird noise at the mention of his father. "Shut the fuck up," he said, but at least he was going along with Jeremy's plan.

"What are we talking about?" chirped a female voice from beside them. Jeremy's eyes popped open wide and their balance shook. They hadn't realized Jenna was listening in to their conversation and was moving her desk to connect to theirs.

Right before they were about to fall over in their chair in study room for the second time in an many days, a scarred arm shot out and stabilized their seat. "Talking about how soon, Heere is gonna be calling me 'Daddy' for the week," Rich said.

Jenna looked between them, apparently struggling to figure out whether Rich was joking or if Jeremy was coming out of the closet in style.

"I am not!" Jeremy said, but their voice broke on the last word and went up an octave. Jenna laughed, but Rich was looking over Jeremy like a puzzle yet again. That's right-Rich didn't believe Jeremy retained any imperfect vocal tics. Jeremy should have been smug about it, but self-consciousness reigned. They would prefer sounding synthetic to sounding defective. "Rich is gonna be the one waiting on me hand and foot," they said in an attempt at recovery.

"Oh, boys," Jenna said in fond exasperation, as if this kind of back-and-forth was the norm for high school guys. "You're gonna be so ready to get hazed in your frats." She let the subject go without any more prodding, and the rest of the period was spent with chatter about other students' social lives that Jeremy mostly tuned out of, except when she asked a casual, "So on the weekends, are you really going to blowout benders at other schools and doing ecstasy, or is it true you went to Madeline's orgy instead?"

"I am so tired," Jeremy said petulantly, "of all these false dichotomies."

"So, both?" Jenna said.

Jeremy gave up. "Both," they said flatly, which would give Jenna enough answer to shut her up but sound ambiguously false enough to keep her from spreading the rumor any further. As predicted, she tailspinned into other stories she'd heard about Madeline and her insatiably sexy wiles.

Rich, for his part, unexpectedly loved exchanging gossip about the popular kids. He contributed his own bits of gossip, at least half of which Jeremy suspected was made up on the spot. Jenna kept ribbing Rich about the house fire, which Rich was obviously uncomfortable about, but he took the jokes graciously like he thought he deserved to be the butt of them.

Jeremy's ears perked up when Christine was mentioned, but it was only in the context of the anti-bullying expo, which Jenna claimed had been "advertising all over. It's set up by the same people who sponsor those Instagram model posts and all those Craigslist ads? The money's supposed to go to a good cause, like a legal defense team for bullying victims or something?" Jenna snorted. "Imagine suing someone who shoves you into a locker."

"They can't do that!" Rich said. He hadn't been on the warpath from what Jeremy had see, but he was probably fretting about legal repercussions of shoving nerds around for the first time.

"You really can't beat the best kind of advertising," Jeremy said. At Rich and Jenna's looks, they elaborated, "Word of mouth. That… 'company' has always followed the same business model as a viral product. You get one person buying your 'product,' soon their entire identity's wrapped up in it. Incentivize them to spread it to others. Then your users are doing the work for you."

"Like those belly band weight loss things?" Jenna said. "For a couple years, like, all my Facebook friends were trying to sell them. They weren't hacked or anything, either!"

"That's a pyramid scheme." Rich said it like he had an extensive knowledge of con art but didn't feel like sharing the details. "Not exactly the same, but close enough."

"In any case, even if this anti-bullying expo thing works, which it does, it's running on scam logic," Jeremy said to Jenna directly. "They already suckered Christine in. Don't go to one of those things unless you want to turn into a walking billboard."

"How do you know so much about these guys?" Jenna asked-no, interrogated. Jeremy could easily picture her as Lois Lane, with a pen poised against an old-timey reporter's notebook. Stop the presses! Jeremy used to work with the SQUIPs! A rumor along those lines wouldn't do, not at all. Jeremy booted up the ol' social-situation prediction algorithm.

"My dad's a lawyer, remember?" they said. "It's all confidential stuff, but that company's been ripping people off since the 80's." That was when the first working model of the SQUIP system had been tested, so it wasn't entirely a lie. "Shady international groups that aren't exactly legal."

"It's from Japan," Rich intoned unhelpfully.

"That's crazy," Jenna said with all the excitement of a kid being handed a new toy. Her phone was already out, fingers blurring. "I'm texting Chloe about it right now. But, sorry boys, I already promised to check out the next expo. Not like one night'll hurt, right?"

"Don't drink the Flavor Aid," Jeremy said.

Jenna frowned. "You mean the kool-aid?"

"He means the Mountain Dew," Rich said. "Nice knowing you, Jenna."

The bell rang, signalling the end of the period, and Jenna moved away like she'd been dismissed, eyes glued to her phone.

"This school is doomed," Jeremy said tiredly. Soon Chloe would get a SQUIP, then Jenna. By the time the two weeks was up, maybe Rich wouldn't even be around anymore to hold up his end of the bet. "I've updated my databases with Jenna's information. Even with our sealed-food protocols in place, Michael's chances of avoiding a SQUIP just went down sixteen percent."

"You think it's just New Jersey that's like this?" Rich said. It was sullen but the question was real. "Is it just our town that's going down the shitter?"

Jeremy shook their head. "New Jersey is a low-priority area. The rest of the country might not be full of SQUIPs yet, but at this rate, I bet there are clusters in every state that are growing." Would all those SQUIPs be linked to each other in the same network? Unlikely. Maybe someday, once at least one in five people had a SQUIP, that would be feasible. A high-school-wide network had ended disastrously at the play, but only when Michael had thrown a wrench into those plans. Would a larger-scale SQUIP network be better or worse? It would have huge potential to reinvent social systems that ran poorly as-is, but with the SQUIP's blind spot for free will, a nationwide network could only end in disaster.

"So you're not planning to split town with your boyfriend," Rich clarified.

Jeremy considered the idea. "Seems like all that could do is delay the inevitable."

Rich cracked a smile. "See, now you're thinking like me. Why run away if it's gonna get you anyhow? Don't give that fucker the satisfaction of seeing you scared."

"It sees you scared now, Rich, and it'll keep seeing it 'til you're gone," Jeremy retorted. Based on the memory data they had on Rich, the grandstanding and false bravado were very much a sign that Rich was terrified and didn't know what to do. "Through my eyes. Through Christine's. Through whatever person in the school eventually sneaks a SQUIP in your food. It knows you don't want to die anymore and you're terrified of it." Or at least Jeremy can guess that much. "...You don't have to die, if you give up fighting when it happens. A SQUIP is bad but it's not a death sentence."

"Don't," Rich cut them off curtly. "Don't start. You don't know what you're asking from me. Maybe I'd talk to Heere about this, but you and I aren't having this conversation."

"I can guess what he'd say," Jeremy offered weakly, an olive branch of friendship instead of the snarky put-down that hovered at the edge of their tongue. "It'd be just like talking to him."

"I don't need to see your acting skills at work." The classroom was emptying out, so Rich turned away and scooped up his books with a grunt.

Jeremy gathered his pencil case and textbooks too, wordless until they reached the door of the classroom behind Rich. "Hey, Rich, you wouldn't really make me do that, would you?"

Rich turned his head back, a question lingering in the cock of his head, and Jeremy said weakly, "It was a weird joke, right? You wouldn't make me call you daddy."

As he left the room, the barking of Rich's laugh carried down the crowded hall.