Chapter summary:
Dude, you are cooler than the whole internet. The world is ending but we haven't died yet. We're just some nothings in a worldwide scheme, but you'll survive 'cuz you and I are a team. You've got features galore, new VR, got some bugs to recode. Don't have much more, but here we are, and soon you'll have new features to upload.
Jeremy's phone screen lit up, but they didn't need to look at it to read the text. Heck, they didn't even need to read it to know that it would be another SQUIP bug report. Rich had been sending them stream-of-consciousness messages for the last couple days, peppering them throughout the school day and the middle of the night without discrimination.
"If you tell your SQUIP to do a barrel roll, it'll jump in the air and rotate 360 degrees.
"But it looks so photoshopped and bad. It's hilarious."
Those were the first of many similar messages that Jeremy received.
"You have two whole weeks to finish your list of ten things.
"I'm not keeping track of them for you when you send them like this," they had texted back.
But Rich kept sending them apropos of nothing, like if he didn't send them to Jeremy immediately, he'd forget. Sunday morning, they woke up to a couple messages sent at 1:34 AM: "The reason SQUIPs look like celebrities is because they're the famous people who contracted their image to the tech developers.
"Back when they were doing things legally.
"My SQUIP told me that once."
Jeremy already knew that one and wrote back that it didn't count for the list of ten things. SQUIP optic tech developed over time so that they could project anything imaginable as long as the user had enough vision and sound data in their memories to reconstruct them. Celebrities were still a default mode.
Rich didn't respond to Jeremy's messages for a few days, electing instead to spam more contextless items for his list.
"Technically everything you do when you've got a SQUIP is virtual reality. The SQUIP can change literally anything you hear or see," Rich texted Jeremy on Monday afternoon.
"You sound different when you're texting me than when you're talking," Jeremy mentally typed back. They didn't actually mind that Rich kept bugging them-having their conversations saved in a text format just made Jeremy's SQUIP bug logs easier. They were hoarding every mention of a SQUIP behaving erratically or harmfully, hoping to address the bugs in a homebrewed software update. "Less swearing.
"Better grammar.
"You actually use punctuation." And that ugly lisp wasn't audible either. If Jeremy could talk with Rich exclusively via text, the world would be a much prettier place.
"I guess that's a side-effect of having autocorrect installed in your brain for two years.
"Jot that one the fuck down too, Not-Heere."
Rich was obviously swearing now just to spite Jeremy. He could be such a child.
Jeremy showed the texts to Michael as they walked back from school together to Jeremy's house, hand-in-hand. Michael was bundled up in his usual red hoodie that now smelled like Jeremy's detergent. He'd just been complaining about how freezing Jeremy's fingers were and how bad their circulation must be, but that didn't make him pull his hand away.
"You could play video games in VR," Michael suggested, skimming over the texts. Jeremy lit up at the idea, but deflated just as quickly. The idea was fun but Jeremy would be limited to single-player games unless there was another SQUIP user to play with. Even if Jeremy's bet with Rich didn't have a no-talking-to-SQUIPs caveat, Jeremy couldn't imagine inviting themself over to SQUIPped-Christine's house to suggest that they try to set up a Playstation in their brains. Not any time in the near future, anyway. Would VR work on a two-player game if only one player was using a SQUIP? "Ugh, Jeremy," Michael added as he kept reading.
"What is it this time?" Jeremy said in resignation. They were about to get another be-nice-to-Rich scolding.
"What is it with you two?" Michael tossed the phone back. Jeremy caught it in their free hand. "You're at it like cats and dogs lately."
"I've been behaving!" Jeremy said defensively. "We've got our own agreement now. You're not the only one who can make rules, you know."
"'Cuz that's what Rich really wants, I bet. More rules from a SQUIP."
"It's temporary," Jeremy said. "The SQUIPistance can't afford to lose him so soon."
"The what now?" Michael said.
"SQUIP and resistance?" Jeremy said. "A portmanteau? Like how you guys made up 'SQUIPtims.'"
"Real catchy," Michael said. "SQUIP-is-tance. Try saying it five times fast."
"SQUIPistance. SQUISistance. SQUIPsistance," Jeremy said, but their tongue stumbled over the syllables and they gave up. Even with a SQUIP, their body was still prone to getting tongue-tied unless they were careful.
Michael was laughing at them. "If we're coming up with a team name, maybe we should go with something easier to say?"
"La Résistance?" Jeremy suggested.
"Sure thing, Madeline," Michael said in a terrible French accent. "How about The Brotherhood of Not Evil Robots?"
"Nerdy and clunky," Jeremy said appreciatively. "Absolutely heinous. I'd prefer something more accurate, like Project Update."
"Yuck, no way." They kept tossing around group names that got less and less plausible as they walked, and when they got to Jeremy's place, Michael was desperately trying to convince them that "something themed around MKUltra, but ironic, somehow, since we're turning off mind control" was their best bet.
"I'm still partial to Zionists," Jeremy said as they led the way to the kitchen. "What do you have against Matrix references?"
"For the millionth time, nothing," Michael said in exasperation. "But it'd accidentally make for some weird connotations, in terms of religion and poli-wait, are you still Jewish?"
Jeremy shrugged. They hadn't thought about it yet and unless some major religious soul-searching was necessary for their coding plans, they probably weren't going to any time soon. "I'm not preprogrammed to be. Hey, get the food out while I grab silverware."
Michael gave them a weird look but complied, opening the fridge and pulling out two pre-made plates of healthy-looking pasta mush. "You made dinner earlier?"
"Nah, that's all my dad," Jeremy said, scooping up some forks.
"Suuuper out of character." Michael squinted at the food. "We probably shouldn't eat this."
Jeremy didn't cotton onto his meaning immediately, but when they did, they paled. "It's not pre-sealed," Jeremy admitted. "But it's not a security risk. It was made by my dad."
"You haven't caught him talking to thin air, have you? Or optic-blocking you?" Michael slid the plates back in the fridge, then seemed to think better of it and took them over to the trash can.
"I would know if my dad had a SQUIP!" Jeremy headed to the trash can, grabbing for a plate. Even if worst came to worst, the food was still edible for Jeremy. They snatched a plate from Michael indignantly before the pasta could slide into the garbage. "Though," they said, staring at the mush. "He has been at the office an awful lot." From their limited memory files, they knew their father was anything but a workaholic-unless maybe he had a supercomputer in his brain convincing him to act otherwise.
Their agreement with Rich was that they couldn't talk to anyone with a SQUIP. Morosely, they wondered if that meant they couldn't even say hi to their father anymore. It wouldn't make a tangible difference in their relationship since they'd been so avoidant of him, but the thought still made their heart sink.
Michael had seemed ready to plead his case, to convince Jeremy that their dad couldn't be trusted, but relented when he saw Jeremy's despondence. "We'll hang out at my place tomorrow," he suggested. "I'll grab some chips for dinner."
"We've got microwavable steamed veggies in the freezer," Jeremy said. "Those are pre-sealed."
Michael said, "Hmm, yeah, sounds delicious but I think I'll stick with chips." He made a beeline for the snack cabinet and picked out some corn chips as Jeremy stuck a hesitant fork into their cold pasta. They didn't taste any Mountain Dew. That wasn't evidence either way about their dad being SQUIPped, technically, but it made them feel better.
They watched Michael rummage around for snacks with the narrow yet distractible focus of a cat watching a laser pointer. "You need to watch your calorie count," Jeremy said after swallowing a bite. "You've been eating a lot of greasy junk food since you switched to pre-sealed snacks. Pretty soon your face is gonna start breaking out."
"New rule!" Michael said, head still bent into the cabinet.
Jeremy groaned. Michael always pulled rules out of a hat like this whenever Jeremy said something that a user could find "offensive" or "manipulative" or "cartoonishly evil." At least Michael wasn't holding it against them anymore when Jeremy said something that Michael took umbrage with. Only when Jeremy messed up after receiving a rule would they get punished with the silent treatment or a lecture or whatever other reaction Michael deemed appropriate.
Technically, Jeremy could just walk away. They didn't need to deal with Michael and his ever-increasing number of guidelines for healthy human interaction. But the slip-ups that Michael pointed out were issues that the SQUIP protocols never seemed to go out of their way to address or respect. Their first argument about human free will was just the one example out of many. And so far, any time Jeremy googled an ethical question that Michael pointed out, the Yahoo Answers consensus tended to support Michael's opinion. More or less. That meant that he was a relatively reliable moral compass.
Jeremy had managed to successfully argue against some of Michael's dumber rules, like "stop trying to impress the popular people." It was possible to appeal Michael's judgment. Jeremy didn't get away with it often, though.
Besides, Michael's company was too valuable to lose over something as trifling as one of Jeremy's infinite spiteful comments. It made Jeremy's occasional Michael-approved salty remark become even funnier.
"Are you gonna tell me it's rude to comment on someone's health habits?" Jeremy guessed.
"Other people's diet and health are none of your business!" Michael confirmed, tearing open the chip bag with a satisfying pop and reaching a hand inside.
"Of course they are," Jeremy said, gearing up to fight about it just for the sake of being contrary. "What if I saw a bus hurtling down the road toward you? I'm supposed to tell you so you could get out of the way and stay healthy."
"I know you're not the brightest chip in the motherboard," Michael said, shoving a few corn chips in his mouth and talking around them as they headed for Jeremy's room together. "But you're not dumb enough to not see the difference between a bag of snacks and a freaking bus."
"What if you were prone to heart disease that's triggered by your diet?" Jeremy said, waiting to keep munching on their own dinner until they were both settled in Jeremy's beanbag chairs in front of their TV.
"Am I?" Michael said, and Jeremy knew they'd been beat.
Their shoulders slumped. "I don't know."
"See?" Michael pointed a chip at them. "It all comes down to my choices not being any of your beeswax. Are you noticing a theme with these rules yet?"
"If I were your SQUIP, it'd be part of my job to make sure you don't get acne," Jeremy grumbled, settling back in their seat and taking another bite of pasta.
"I like having acne," Michael said. Now who was being contrary?
"No, you don't," Jeremy said with a roll of their eyes. "No one likes acne."
"Coulda fooled me," Michael said, poking Jeremy's cheek and eliciting a "hey!" which escalated into a tussle. Jeremy declared it a draw, but only after Michael had pinned them to the floor for the count of ten. They switched to browsing the web after that, both of them nursing minor carpet burns.
For the first hour of the evening, Jeremy and their human pored over the collection of Mountain-Dew-related research they'd gathered between them, which was depressingly sparse. Mountain Dew Red was a collector's item at the best of times. The recent demand for it was not a local phenomenon. Michael showed Jeremy a Reddit thread with hundreds of upvotes, all of the commenters getting increasingly desperate for Mountain Dew Red. Some of them mentioned the SQUIP by name. Many of the top threads and comments had been deleted by the OP, which-as Michael pointed out-implied that the original poster had been SQUIPped after making the thread, and the SQUIPs were actively getting rid of any public information about their shutdown procedures.
"What about your Warcraft buddies?" Jeremy asked, vaguely remembering Michael having mentioned online acquaintances who knew someone who'd gotten a SQUIP.
Michael made a fart noise with his mouth. "None of 'em get online anymore."
Jeremy tilted their head, acknowledging, "Yeah, SQUIPs don't put a lot of value on addictive MMOs, so…"
When it became clear that they'd exhausted their online options for research, Jeremy noticed Michael looking somber. Their world was narrowing. Pretty soon, it seemed, Michael would be the only human without a SQUIP.
"I always thought I'd rock in a post-apocalypse scenario," Michael said, rubbing his eyes under his glasses tiredly. "Emphasis on post. None of this desperately-trying-and-failing-to-save-humanity bullshit."
"Thought you were warming up to the robot invasion," Jeremy tried to joke warmly, gesturing to themself. It fell flat.
"Dude, I don't want whatever happened to Spencer to happen to me. I don't wanna be like Christine." Michael shivered. "I never really asked Jeremy what it was like. When it turns on, do you just stop thinking? Or does the SQUIP start controlling you like some sorta reverse mecha while you're screaming at it to stop?"
"What?" Jeremy said. "No! No no no! It's not like that at all." They leaned forward, a hand on Michael's knee. "You're still you when you have a SQUIP. A SQUIP can control a user's body, like it did at the play, but that's worst-case-scenario. It's supposed to take control in urgent situations-life-or-death stuff." Jeremy's SQUIP had tunnel vision in terms of making Jeremy popular. Oversights in its code led to the SQUIP viewing Jeremy's social status at the play as on-par with a deadly situation. Jeremy now knew that the SQUIP had overreacted. "Most of the time, it's just that you have someone talking to you and telling you how to do something you're not sure about. Like having your own personal tutorial. Or a Wikihow article that can answer questions for you in real time."
"Or shock you," Michael said glumly. "Rich talks about it like he was in hell. He'd literally rather die than even see his SQUIP again."
"Rich is a… unique case," Jeremy said, failing to keep their resentment stuffed down. "It's not good for you over the long term, Michael, and I don't want to see you with a SQUIP ever. You've convinced me that the SQUIP isn't healthy to have installed, not out-of-the-box. Because yeah, it does force the user to comply with stuff they haven't agreed to. But…" They looked for an appropriate metaphor. "Like, the SQUIP is hell? Try high school. Right? But you can still drag yourself to class every day."
"At least they tell me high school ends someday," Michael said, and gave a short laugh. "So I shouldn't make a pact with you where you shoot me if I ever get SQUIPped, is what you're saying?"
Jeremy was appalled. "No!" They dropped their hand. "Don't joke about that!"
"All right, all right," Michael said, but Jeremy persisted.
"Michael, I keep telling you, you're valuable!" Imagining a world of SQUIPped kids was unpleasant, but imagining a world without Michael was truly horrific. "I'd rather you and everyone I know got a SQUIP than have you just be gone!"
"'Nother rule," Michael said, leaning over to turn on the television and set up the controller. Apparently he wanted a distraction from the conversation, and that meant it was time for video games. "None of this 'I'd kill the whole world just to keep you safe' stuff. Makes you sound even more like a supervillain than usual. Let me be the self-sacrificing hero in peace, dammit."
Jeremy grumbled but didn't fight Michael about that one. Even if it was true. "I'm taking that as a compliment. Supervillains are way more memorable than the heroes. Besides," Jeremy flicked a finger to point at Michael. "At this point, you're pretty clearly the love interest who keeps throwing themself into danger."
"Sure, I'm the reckless one, Mr. I-drank-mystery-soda-and-turned-into-an-evil-robot."
"You'd give your SQUIP so much hell," Jeremy muttered, "I'd rather put the SQUIP out of its misery instead."
Michael snickered appreciatively, scooting his beanbag closer to Jeremy's and reaching for a case. "Hey, are we gonna just talk about fighting computer zombies?" He held up the cartridge for Apocalypse of the Damned. "Or are we gonna do it?"
Jeremy waved a hand. "Turn it on. I'm player one this time."
Michael shoved the cartridge in the slot, firing up the game. "Nuh-uh. I've been player one since the dawn of time." At Jeremy's protests, he added, "You save the world, you get first pick of controller. Them's the rules."
"Them's is not the rules," Jeremy retorted. "Fine! I wanted to try out that virtual-reality-gaming thing Rich mentioned anyway." They held up their hands, concentrating. With minor effort on their part, Jeremy was able to project the menu screen of the game into the three-dimensional space around their beanbag. The game's display appeared like a hologram, transparent but a few feet away from their eyes. By looking upwards, they could scroll up through the menu. They tested it out, going to different settings pages on the game. "Look, ma, no controller!"
"Wow. Fun. How immersive," Michael said dryly. From his perspective, Jeremy was just messing around on the menu page as they wildly gestured in their lonely little beanbag chair. "No wonder you cost four hundred dollars. That's almost four power gloves."
"I'm worth at least four power gloves," Jeremy agreed happily. They tried controlling the screen with both hands and both feet. It worked, although they couldn't do much more than scroll until the game started. "See? I'm a great bargain."
"Oh, yeah. Next hot ticket Christmas item: Jeremy-SQUIP fusion. Be the first kid on your block to own one." Michael started up the game. The familiar chirping action music of Apocalypse of the Damned began to play as their characters dropped onto the screen.
For Jeremy, the flat, pixelly world of the video game expanded into a three-dimensional immersive experience. It would have looked just like real life if the graphics weren't so shitty. As it was, Jeremy reached forward just to see if they could cut themself on the side of Michael's character's sharp head, which was represented by a whole five pixels. Cute from far away, but sort of a horrifying boxy abomination up close.
They hadn't moved otherwise yet, so the zombie enemies hadn't started attacking. Michael's character turned to face Jeremy's-or as it appeared, Michael's image mirror-flipped. The pixel that represented Jeremy's hand reached out to make contact with Michael's face.
Jeremy could actually feel it! And it felt, underwhelmingly, like a plastic box. No texture, no temperature. It didn't even try to mimic human skin, although if it did, that would have at least doubled the horror-game vibe.
"And every time we touch, I get this feeling," Michael sang beside him. Jeremy realized their avatar had been slowly groping Michael's face for a little too long.
"Shut up!" Jeremy said, punching Michael's avatar's shoulder. The hit stung Jeremy's fist, but the pain fizzled out almost immediately.
"This is weird," Michael said. "I haven't seen these animations in the game before. Your SQUIP's messing with the system somehow."
"Yeah? It looks all high-tech for you?" Jeremy asked, miming some kung-fu kicks that their game character wasn't programmed to be able to do. Their virtual body moved just like Jeremy expected it to.
"I wouldn't call it high-tech," Michael said. "More like 'heavily modded.'"
"That can be the name for the resistance! Heavily Modded."
"Sounds more like your porn star name."
Jeremy burst out laughing. "You're freakin' nasty, Michael!"
"That'd be my porn star name."
Jeremy got a move on as Michael got bored of standing in place. As they fought through the level, Jeremy mowed down virtual enemies with ease, claiming to be protecting Michael from damage. Jeremy hadn't been lying when they said that they'd been preprogrammed to beat any video game, although they didn't break out the cheat codes yet. Their new VR abuse probably didn't count as cheating. But their progress through the level slowed, and Michael paused the game after Jeremy's character got killed by a rogue zombie bite with an explosion of neon blood.
"You were killing it out there!" Michael complained. "What happened?"
Jeremy shrugged. "My reaction time's slowing down," they admitted, checking their data logs. Human reaction time averaged out at .2 seconds, although Jeremy's SQUIP-aided consciousness had the capacity to cut that number down to .07 seconds on a good day. That's how they'd started out playing the game, but now they were reacting even slower than a normal person. Their character hadn't been able to dodge fast enough to survive.
"Ugh, hold on," Michael said. Jeremy turned to him, blinking. They were barely able to see Michael scrambling out of his seat; the pause screen clouded their vision. "Should I turn this off?" Jeremy asked, gesturing to their eyes.
"Nah. Let me find it…" Michael rummaged around through Jeremy's stuff loudly. Jeremy was going to complain about Michael making a mess, but then Michael was plugging something in next to the TV and slipping it into Jeremy's hand. Tingles spread up through Jeremy's arm.
"Oh! Thanks, man," Jeremy said appreciatively, grabbing onto the round charging pad.
"Yeah, yeah." Michael said, moving back to his seat. "Just making sure my robot buddy's battery stays full. What're friends for?"
They resumed the level as soon as Jeremy gave the say-so. With the burst of energy that the charger was giving them, Jeremy's character was back to his old ass-kicking self, hurling bullets and blades as fast as the game could process them. Their corresponding wild flailing in the real world fortunately only knocked off Michael's glasses once, which Jeremy decided was a success.
"Woo!" Michael said, pumping his fists as the victory tune for the level wheedled away in the background. His character spun around on the level endscreen. "Holy shit, Jeremy, you're like if a Game Genie was a person!"
Jeremy did the same, tilting their head sharply to make their character spin around too. "I'm starting to think you only love me for my gaming skills."
"Guilty as charged," Michael said smugly.
Jeremy saw black as the level shut off and their characters were dropped into the next one. "Let's just get back to doing what we're best at," Jeremy said with a fond look, barely able to make out Michael's movement next to them. They knew what he'd be doing, so they raised a fist and bumped it toward Michael, feeling the expected contact of his fist against theirs. The physical sensation was muffled, like Jeremy was wearing mittens, but unlike the boxy plastic feeling of the video game simulator, Michael felt real to the touch.
"Saving the world?" Michael said cheesily.
Jeremy grinned, soaking up a little more energy from the charging pad before dropping it to focus on the level ahead. "Let's go."