#doc would make a bunch of Doc Noises and then change the subject

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

bro chill. that's your girlfriend

transcript:

JENNIFER: Well, what d'ya think? Do I make a good cowboy? MARTY: o////o MARTY: Yeah! Good! Great! Good. Good cowboy. Great. Good. JENNIFER: Ah. JENNIFER: Aw, you really think so? MARTY: Aaugh. JENNIFER: Y'know, Marty, you make a pretty good cowboy yourself- MARTY: I do? JENNIFER: Yeah, you do. DOC: [LIVE DOC REACTION] DOC: *AHEM*. When you're done with that... about the Delorean... JENNIFER: (forgot he was there) OH MY GOD.

[hyperactivepuppy]

Parties Are The Worst - Chapter 1

New fic! I found this partially written story in my google docs from months ago and thought some of you might enjoy it. ^.^  I had way too much fun writing all of the students being crazy XD.

Summary: Todoroki gets dragged to a party at Kirishima and Bakugo’s new apartment, but turns out his tolerance for alcohol is not as high as he thought... **Note—this is set when all of the students are in their early 20s, so there is no underage drinking :).

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28635390/chapters/70190049

~*~

Parties were the worst. They were loud, confusing, and extremely overwhelming. Why on earth would anyone choose to attend such an event?

Todoroki had been wondering this for the past hour, tucked away in the furthest corner of the room to try and escape the noise.

When Kirishima had gleefully announced the event that Monday, he immediately declined. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Kirishima—he just didn’t want to spend an evening crammed in with a bunch of hyped up 20-year-olds. Then Midoriya came along with his wide, innocent, puppy eyes and somehow managed to change his mind.

So here he was, trapped at Kirishima’s apartment while the entire class of 1A shrieked and danced. Someone had dragged all of the couch cushions onto the floor and Mina and Sero were diving off the wooden frame into a mound of pillows. Loud, obnoxious music boomed through the room and Kaminari was screaming along with the lyrics in a horrible attempt at karaoke.

Todoroki wanted to leave. The whole atmosphere was just too much. It was too loud—too overwhelming. And to make it all worse, he didn’t even have Midoriya there to help ground him. Honestly, he wouldn’t even be there if Midoriya hadn’t asked him so sweetly the day before. He’d promised to stay with him all evening and said they could sit in the corner and talk. But Kaminari somehow managed to burn all the frozen pizzas and both Midoriya and Yaoyorozu had gone to the store to buy more.

So now he was alone—anxious, tired, and with no escape. His head was starting to ache from the constant chatter, making him even less tolerant of the chaotic environment.

Sighing, he pushed away from the wall and headed toward the snack table. Maybe a drink would help. At least it would give him something to do. Methodically, he pulled a plastic cup from the stack and filled it with punch.

As he sipped the cold drink, he pulled out his phone, smiling a little as he scrolled through cat videos on Tiktok. Watching cute kittens calmed his anxious mind, but it also distracted him enough that he didn’t notice Kaminari sneak up behind him until the blond yelled in his ear.

“Hey, Todobro, wanna make drinks with us?” Kaminari asked, grinning dopily at him.

Todoroki started, looking up from his phone. He was about to politely decline the offer and head back over to his designated corner, when he remembered something Midoriya had said that morning.

It will be fine! I’ll stay with you the whole time. And if you’re feeling anxious, you could always try having a little to drink. No pressure or anything, but a bit of alcohol might help you relax a bit and enjoy yourself more.

At the time, he had dismissed the idea, wary of the adverse effects of said beverage. He’d seen what some of his classmates acted like drunk and he wasn’t too keen on throwing away his neatly filed inhibitions and making a fool of himself. Even though they were of age now, he hadn’t tried much alcohol. It was usually served at parties—something he mostly tried to avoid.

A sharp cough startled him back and he blushed when he noticed Kaminari still standing there, hand on hip as he waited for an answer. Mina had joined him and was giving Todoroki wide puppy dog eyes.

He swallowed. “Oh, uh… sure, I guess.” He still wasn’t sure if it was the best idea, but it had to be better than standing against the wall stressing. At least he hoped so.

“Yes!!” Mina punched a hand in the air, rushing over to the kitchen. “Kiri, do you have any tequila?”

Kirishima poked his head around the door, eyebrows raised in interest. “We making drinks?”

“Yup!” Kaminari cheered, almost dropping the two glasses he’d pulled from the cupboard.

It was almost as if Bakugo could sense the near accident as he gave Kaminari a seething look. “Watch what you touch, Pikachu. This isn’t your damn house.”

“Chill, man. I’ve got it under control,” Kirishima soothed, patting his boyfriend’s arm gently. “This just comes along with hosting a party at your own flat. Now do you want a drink or not?”

Bakugo rolled his eyes but got out another three glasses. “Whatever.”

Meanwhile, Kaminari was carefully pouring pineapple juice into a glass, tongue sticking out in concentration.

Mina hovered over his shoulder, watching intently.

“Then you add two shots of tequila,” Kaminari explained, nodding expertly like he’d been mixing drinks his whole life.

“Ohhhh.” Mina measured out two shot glasses and handed them over.

“You sure it’s two?” Bakugo asked sceptically.

“Course I am! What, you think I’ve never done this before?” Kaminari dumped the liquid into the glass and started adding carefully sliced lemon peel.

“Dude, are you putting the peel in there?!” Kirishima asked, only just noticing what was going on.

Kaminari nodded, waving the lemon in front of Kirishima’s face to emphasise the point. “Yeah! They give it that extra zest.”

“Omg. You guys are gonna feel so sick,” Bakugo drawled.

Mina shrugged, taking the glass and sipping at it. “Mm! Super good. You were right about the lemon peel, it does add flavour!”

Kaminari beamed, already mixing up another drink. “Here, Todoroki, try it!” He practically shoved the glass at Todoroki, sloshing some of the liquid over the side.

Todoroki blinked in surprise. “Uh, thanks.” He looked down at the glass, frowning as he examined the contents. It seemed a little weird, but who was he to judge Kaminari’s mixology skills when he knew nothing about the subject?

Tentatively, he took a sip of the drink. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad. A little bitter and the chunks of lemon peel were kind of weird, but overall it tasted pretty good. Shrugging, he tilted his head back and downed the rest in one go.

When he looked down, Kaminari and Mina were staring at him with huge eyes, expressions of shock mirrored on both of their faces.

“Dude, you’re not supposed to chug it!” Kaminari shouted, barely getting the words out between bursts of laughter.

Todoroki blinked down at the empty glass in his hand. “Oh.” He frowned.

“Still, those are insane skills you got there, Todo. I want you on my team next time we play beer pong,” Mina added, watching him with jealous eyes.

Todoroki had no idea what ‘beer pong’ was but figured it was one of those things that he would be made fun of for if he asked, so he kept quiet.

“Okay, now—who wants jello shots?!”

~*~

Thirty minutes later, Kaminari and Mina had introduced him to a whole array of new drinks, some of which he was suspiciously sure had only been invented that evening.

Surprisingly, he was actually starting to enjoy himself. The alcohol surrounded him in a pleasant buzz, steadily clawing away at his fierce barriers until he was laughing along with the other two.

“Okay, try this—pink lemonade, beer, and that weird rum Shinso likes.” Kaminari held out a glass, giggling so hard the cup shook in his hand.

“Ew!” Mina cried, sticking her tongue out in revulsion. “Kaminari, that sounds disgusting!”

“Can’t know ‘til you try it.” Kaminari raised the glass to his lips and took a long sip, spilling half the contents down his front. Giggling, he pulled away. “Oops. Here, Todo, you gotta try!”

Normal inhibitions dissolved, Todoroki accepted the cup and downed the rest of the drink.

“Dude, you should do karaoke with us!” Kaminari gasped suddenly, eyes lighting up with excitement. He grabbed the mic from the counter where he’d discarded it while they made drinks. “I bet you have a hella gorgeous voice.”

“Yeah!” Mina cut in, waving enthusiastically. “Don’t worry, you can’t be any worse than this idiot.” She snatched the mic from Kaminari, giggling at his gasp of outrage.

“Rude!” he cried, trying to grab the mic back.

“Omg you two. Cut it out,” Jirou said, suddenly appearing as if summoned by the prospect of music. She rolled her eyes dramatically. “If you keep arguing we’re never gonna get Todoroki to sing.” She held out an insistent hand. “Give it.”

Mina sighed and reluctantly handed over the mic. “Fineeeee. But only because I wanna see Todoroki sing.”

Jirou smirked and held the device out to Todoroki, ignoring Kaminari’s dramatic whine as he stumbled over his own feet trying to get over to the karaoke machine and collapsed into the pile of pillows that littered the floor.

“Oh, uh, no thanks,” Todoroki said quickly, taking a step back. No way was he going to sing in front of all his classmates.

“Aw, come on!” Mina cried, pouting. “It’s just for fun!”

Todoroki shook his head, taking another step back. “I don’t want to.” Or at least, he shouldn’twant to. But for some reason he didn’t feel all that opposed to the idea. Which was strange because he would never normally consider singing in front of people.

“Aw, don’t be such a scaredy cat, man!” Kaminari whined from the floor. He sat up, messy hair flopping over his eyes. “How come you can face villains without batting an eye but singing a little karaoke has you shaking?”

Todoroki frowned, genuinely perplexed by the blunt statement. When Kaminari put it like that, it did seem rather silly. Surely there wasn’t any harm in giving it a go… Midoriya always encouraged him to try new things.

“Okay,” he said, utterly shocking the three students gathered around him.

Mina gaped at him. “Sorry, what?!”

“I’ll do it,” Todoroki clarified, taking the mic from Jirou’s limp hand.

It only took a moment for Mina’s excitement to return in full force. Squealing in delight, she ran over to set up the karaoke machine. “What song do you want?”

Todoroki shrugged. He probably wouldn’t recognise any of the songs anyway. He’d never been very caught up on the current popular music. “What do they have?”

“Hm…” Mina tapped her chin. “Come look.”

Todoroki nodded, moving over to peer at the little booklet in Mina’s hands. After scanning the list of unfamiliar songs, his eyes finally settled on a familiar title and his heart gave a little leap of excitement. “This one,” he said, running his finger over the small print.

Mina’s eyes widened. “Dude! I didn’t know you liked the Greatest Showman?!”

Todoroki nodded solemnly, as if this should be common knowledge. “It’s an artistic masterpiece.”

Kaminari giggled from the floor. “Kay, let’s hear it then, Mr. artistic masterpiece.”

Mina broke into a violent fit of laughter as she pressed the ‘start’ button on the screen. “Alright, take it away!”

Todoroki raised the mic to his lips and breathed out a slow sigh, watching the TV screen as the opening notes of “This Is Me” filled the room. He almost felt like he was floating, riding a giddy wave of euphoria that really shouldn’t come from standing in front of a crowd. But this was happening and he felt greatso he sucked in a deep breath and began to sing.

“I am not a stranger to the dark. Hide away, they say, ‘cause we don’t want your broken parts. I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars. Run away, they say, no one’ll love you as you are. But, I won’t let them break me down to durst. I know that there’s a place for us. For we are glorious.”

Cheers erupted from his fellow classmates, sending his heart stuttering with a strange exhilaration. Feeling a little like he was whirling through an extremely realistic dream, Todoroki started the chorus with a heightened sense of conviction.

“When the sharpest words wanna cut me down. I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out. I am brave, I am bruised, I am who I’m meant to be, this is me.”

By the time the song ended, Todoroki was positively glowing, his mind swept up in a giddy whirl of excitement.

The others seemed just as excited, whooping and hollering as Todoroki set the mic down.

“Omg! That was amazing!” Mina squealed, grabbing his hands and spinning him around so fast he almost tripped over his own feet.

“Thanks,” Todoroki gasped. Even though Mina had let him go, the room continued to spin around him, creating the unpleasant sensation that he was on one of those spinny theme park rides. He swallowed, reaching out for the wall to try and steady himself. God, he was dizzy.

“You should sing more often! You have such a pretty voice!” Mina continued, still bouncing around in excitement.

“Yeah!” Kaminari enthused, stepping up beside them and throwing an arm over Mina’s shoulder.

Todoroki barely heard them. Suddenly he wasn’t having fun anymore. The swaying room sent his stomach pitching and he wanted nothing more than to lie down on the floor and close his eyes until the spinning went away.

The others seemed to notice his distress, voicing their concerns as they pressed in on him.

“Whoa, you okay bro?” Kaminari asked, eyeing him warily.

Todoroki nodded, mumbling a feeble reply. “Yeah.” His body burned with an uncomfortable heat, entirely different from his own fire. “Jus’ gonna si’down for a mi’te.” He stumbled toward the couch, reaching out blindly as he tripped over his own feet.

Suddenly Kirishima was there, catching his swaying body before he could fall and guiding him over to the couch.

Todoroki groaned, closing his eyes when the change in position aggravated his already queasy stomach. He sucked in a few deep breaths, pressing his cheek against the couch in an attempt to ground himself.

“You good?” Kirishima asked, crouching down next to the couch and laying a hand on Todoroki’s shoulder.

Todoroki nodded feebly, wincing when the small movement intensified his dizziness. Even with his eyes closed the room seemed to spin in lazy circles around him. He swallowed. “Yeah. Jus’ got kinda diz’y.”

Kirishima hummed in understanding. “Yeah, that’s the downside to alcohol. I think maybe you should slow down for a bit, man.”

Just the thought of drinking anything more sent his already uncomfortable stomach churning. He swallowed again, shifting a little on the couch to try and get more comfortable.

“He okay?” A voice suddenly spoke above them

Mina and Kaminari gathered around the couch, watching Todoroki in concern.

Kirishima nodded, hand still on Todoroki’s shoulder. “I think he just had a little too much to drink,” he explained.

Mina and Kaminari exchanged guilty looks.

“Oh…” Mina breathed.

Kirishima frowned, brow furrowed in suspicion. “What did you guys do?”

“Nothing!” Kaminari defended, waving his arms wildly. “We were just making drinks. Todoroki was all for it!”

“Yeah! We didn’t force him or anything,” Mina added.

Kirishima sighed. “Fine, fine. I believe you.” He glanced down at Todoroki’s pale face. “I guess he’s just not really used to drinking.”

Kaminari couldn’t suppress a grin. “Omg, who would have ever guessed perfect IcyHot was such a lightweight!”

Todoroki pressed his face further into the cushions, trying to block out the sounds of the others talking. He really didn’t feel well. And Midoriya was still out with Yaoyorozu looking for stupid frozen pizza. Why oh why had he come to this stupid party?!

Another wave of nausea slammed over him, this one noticeably stronger. The taste of liquor brushed the back of his throat, bitter and rancid against his tongue. Gross—why was he tasting it again now?

You’re going to throw up, his mind supplied, almost as if it was annoyed with his inability to put the clues together.

Shakily, he pushed himself upright, swaying when dizziness slammed against him. He forced his eyes open, searching desperately for any indication of where Kirishima’s bathroom might be. Why hadn’t he asked about that earlier?

“Hey man, you okay?” Kirishima asked, startled by Todoroki’s sudden movement.

Todoroki swallowed, eyes falling to the ground. He knew he should get up and try to run to the bathroom, but his head was still spinning and he couldn’t get his limbs to respond.

“You aren’t looking so good… are you feeling sick?” Kirishima asked tentatively.

Todoroki nodded, pressing a fisted hand to his mouth to stifle a sudden burp. “I don’ wanna drink anym’re,” he mumbled, trying to swallow back the bitter saliva that suddenly flooded his mouth.

“I think he’s gonna hurl,” Kaminari put in, earning him an eye roll from Mina.

“Yeah, no kidding, dude. He’s greener than Midoriya’s hair.”

Todoroki groaned, closing his eyes again as his stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. “‘M gonna throw up,” he mumbled, voice muffled by the hand covering his mouth.

“Shit, yeah, okay,” Kirishima swore, jumping to his feet. “Think you can make it to the bathroom?” He didn’t wait for a response, already grabbing Todoroki’s arm and dragging him to his feet.

Todoroki tried to steady himself, but as soon as he was on his feet, all traces of control evaporated and his stomach gave a violent heave and vomit rushed up his throat. He tried to bend over, but he was too dizzy to navigate properly and most of the vomit spilled down his front. He whimpered, coughing miserably.

“Shit!” Kirishima gasped, grabbing Todoroki’s arm as he swayed dangerously.

“Sor—” Todoroki tried to say, but was cut off by another rush of vomit. He wiped a hand across his mouth, groaning.

“Okay, okay. Come on. Let’s get you to the bathroom.” Kirishima hauled him across the room and down the first hallway, only just managing to get Todoroki situated over the toilet before he heaved again.

“I wanna go home,” he mumbled, gripping the edge of the toilet as he swayed. “C’n you get Izuku?”

Kirishima reached out, sweeping Todoroki’s fringe out of his eyes. “Midoriya isn’t here right now. He’s out with Yaoyorozu. But he’ll probably be back soon.”

Todoroki gave a miserable little sob, collapsing over the toilet with his arms laid across the lid to keep himself upright. Tears welled in mismatched eyes, blurring his already hazy vision. Kirishima was being really nice about the whole thing, but he wasn’t Midoriya. No one could replace Midoriya.

**To be continued**

[techmomma]

Do you happen to know of any lists or personal tests that could be good for getting a self-assessment for autism? Not, like, something for self-diagnosis, but something that could indicate, "Huh! Maybe I ought to talk to doctor about this."

Do you play DnD? ;P

I kid, I kid. It’s one of those things that can be easy to test for and hard to test for at the same time? And then you add in how it can look very different, depending on your gender (but not always?). And then it can show up as this COMPLETELY different thing for one person, compared to another. And then there’s like... tests will describe it one way that doesn’t sound anything like what you do, but then you hear the testimonies of people who ARE autistic and you’re like “WAIT A SEC.” And THEN you add on how it can look very different in adulthood, having spent a lifetime undiagnosed, compared to as a child. Here’s a list of some usual traits, but I’d really recommend listening to personal testimonies. But here’s some of the reasons that I highly suspect I might have it and will probably bring it up with my doc.

Things I did as a child (some of which are still there, just subtler/quieter):

I got more upset than most children if a routine was upset. If routine changed or item moved from where it was “supposed to be”, I got really anxious. (Rigidity in routine)

I repeated kindergarten because my first year, I was not at the same emotional maturity as the other kids. (Delayed emotional maturity.)

I greatly preferred to play by myself. 

I was heavily teased for being The Weird Kid.

I had atypical interests compared to my peers.

I had a Thing that I would obsess over--sometimes for years. The Titanic, Egypt, unicorns and dragons, along with more minor ones sometimes. I could tell you like every fact ever about those subjects. (Fact: The Titanic was 882.5 ft. long.) 

Very heavy texture sensitivity. There were (and are) certain fabrics that I just CANNOT wear, because they irritate me or drive me crazy. Doesn’t feel good. (Kaj and I call these things Bad Feels.)

I didn’t talk a lot, but I was known for being very wordy as a kid. Advanced words. “Absent-minded professor” was my nickname because I knew a whole bunch of weird, niche facts about a subject and could understand the wobble of the earth’s axis in third grade.

Excelled in math and data and reading, tended to do poorly in more abstract subjects.

Did not make friends easily.

Tended to be the butt of jokes because I did not understand said jokes were about me.

Very sensitive to noises. I would complain about things being too loud that were perfectly normal to other people.

LOTS of trouble regulating emotions. I was the kid who could cry or yell at the drop of a hat, seemingly out of nowhere.

I was the Weird Horse Girl

Things that are and have always been true:

Maintaining eye contact is not upsetting, but is very uncomfortable for me. It usually either feels too intimate or too confrontational, I only really do it with people I know.

I’m sensitive to lights, and to clinking noises. Meltdowns as an adult look more like I’m getting really irritable, then getting really overwhelmed and having trouble concentrating, then needing to cry because I’m having a panic attack if it gets too bad don’t FUCKING TALK TO ME IT’S TOO MUCH.

Sometimes food textures are just too weird to eat. Especially vegetables. Don’t like crunchy vegetable texture.

I do stim though it’s usually more subtle. My most obvious one is a stim I call “Thinky/Thinking Fingers,” where I’ll be in the kitchen, and I just can’t help myself from wiggling my fingers while I’m looking through the cupboard or just. Looking around the kitchen trying to figure out what ingredients to get or food to make. I also like to chew on things.

I tend to do weird little movements like slapping my desk really fast when I’m excited, making lots of small bounces in place, getting excited and responding with some weird gesture instead of speaking (THEN speaking).

T-rex arms are a very common posture for me. (It’s just THING in autism sometimes.)

Absolutely never outgrew fixations and things I obsess over look at the AUs. 

I’ve done a LOT of practicing to be good at speaking and I tend to be the class clown, so it’s hard to see, but my natural speaking voice is very monotonous. Were it not for social anxiety/wanting to make people laugh, I would not be very expressive.

Some social cues or sarcasm still goes like right over my head.

Y’know, I know some of my followers have been diagnosed with autism, so if you want to comment/reblog either with your own experiences with it, or the symptoms that you were diagnosed for, or what brought your doctors/psychiatrists to the diagnosis, I bet that’d be really helpful! And then you can check back here, Amish, if they do. There’s underlying patterns that remain the same, but how they express themselves can look so different from person to person!

[anony-mouse-writer]

Author ask game: All the even numbers ;)

Welp.

2 & 18 can be found here.

4) favorite character you’ve written

I love all of them a lot. 

Not mine would probably by Falling Star’s Steve. 

Original character…. atm, that would probably be Tagaki. He’s a management student who is also an ex-delinquent and it’s hilariously fun writing him.

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

I would love to take back the three year break I took from writing. Like, why did I stop? That was a Mistake.

8) favorite genre to write

I want to say fantasy, but if angst counts as a genre, that would probably be more accurate.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

Background noise, 100%. Hm. Depends on what I’m writing. I make faces when I write emotional scenes and it’s awkward when I remember ppl can see me.

12) your weaknesses as an author

Consistency. In tense, style, and publication

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

No. tbh I never understood doing this? Though what I’m listening to can sometimes influence my work (ie, listening to the Crawl starter screen on loop makes me write tension)

16) are there any characters who haunt you? 

(There is a list of permanently finished WIPs in my google doc and all of them cry at me a lot.)

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Usually sit-downs. One of my profs is trying to convince me to do 10 min a day though to help so I guess I’m kinda doing that atm. 

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Um. There’s a bunch of topics I’m not an expert in that I think would make for good stories. I very rarely publish them cuz I don’t always know where to go for consistent information to tell me where I’m doing things right or wrong and I don’t want to get that wrong (ie a fully mute character). Also smut. It is extremely difficult for me to write. Romance to a lesser extent.

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

I have done a ton of research on particular and specific subjects, but not really anywhere I’d call myself an expert. (Unless we count that time when I tracked down and read all of the existing Baccano light novels to write a fic for that that I never finished because I wanted to properly capture all the characters and writing style.)

[carrot-cat17]

Bravery - Chapter 3

Chapter 2 | Chapter 4

Seven Souls (and Sans) Chrono

 Sans has a dream.

Read on AO3 here

~ ~ ~

They had set her up on their lumpy, green couch. Papyrus had made sure to smother her with at least five of the fluffiest, least hole-y blankets they had.

 “Don’t freak out if you wake up in the middle of the night and Papyrus is suddenly there. He doesn’t sleep much, and he has early shifts at his work,” he’d warned her before heading upstairs and flopping onto his own mattress.

 Despite how tired he was, Sans found it a little difficult to get to sleep. Everytime he managed to close his eye sockets, they’d fly open in a panic as he fought off visions of his latest houseguest getting run through by someone’s bullets. If anyone found out there was a human in the Underground...if      Asgore     found out…

 He supposed Asgore could still potentially rescind his decree. But the boss monster was usually true to his word. Still, the king had never struck Sans as the type to kill in cold blood…

 He rubbed his face and heaved a great sigh. Was he just feeling things, or had those little grooves under his sockets gotten deeper today?

 ~

 A prodding sensation on his humerus dragged Sans out of a dreamless sleep. He groaned, waving his arm about in the intruder’s general direction without opening his eyes.

 “‘ey, leemee alone,” he muttered and rolled over.

 After a moment, the prodding returned. This time with much greater force.

 “ow! stop that, will ya?” he growled. Sans curled in on himself tighter and squeezed his eyes shut.

 Just as he was about to drift off again, something hard and plastic-feeling slammed itself against the side of his skull. Sans shot up.

 “i said      stop    !” he raged, rubbing his aching temple and glowering at…

 Oh. It was Gaster.

 His weapon of choice: that little radio. Sans barely had time to collect himself before the radio was practically thrown at him. His hands fumbled for a moment before he had a secure grip on the device. He turned it on, blinking the last of the sleep away, and started turning the dial from channel to channel. Gaster began his customary “testing” sounds.

 At last, they landed on a good signal. It wasn’t entirely clear, but it would do.

 “Sans!” the goopy man exclaimed through the static. “I’m so glad I finally got through to you again!

 “yeah, man, what took you so long? it’s been, like, several months,” Sans replied drily.

 “Sorry! I’m so sorry! I’ve been trying- you      have     been holding onto that little bit of me, right?”

 “yeah, of course. i’ve been dealing with enough crap lately. don’t need to add      losing my marbles     to the list. heh.”

 “Good. Okay. So then we know it’s not necessarily the marble that’s stopped working…” Gaster scowled down at the floor.

 The...purple and blue...floor.

 “kind of a weird place to meet up, don’t you think?” Sans piped up. “i mean, what’s so special about my room?”

 Gaster looked up and around the small space, suddenly looking a little surprised. “Mmyes, I do suppose this is a rather strange location. I wish I could say.”

 “does that mean you      can’t     or you      won’t    ?”

 “I’m afraid I have no idea. I don’t have a whole lot of options available to me in the void on a      good     day. I just wait for the right moments to try and break through, whenever - and      where    ver - they may be. I’ve noticed they tend to be places not as heavily affected by the...by the incident. But I can’t quite pin down      why    …”

 “the ‘incident?’” Sans interjected. “what ‘incident?’”

 Gaster looked a little like a deer in the headlights for a moment. “Oh, never you mind that, my boy. That’s a story for when you’re older!” He grinned and...winked? Probably? Eh, close enough. “Besides,” he continued. “We haven’t got much time.”

 Sans looked up at the ceiling in frustration. “see, g, this is the problem. you hardly ever come to visit anymore and even when you do you never tell me anything actually      useful    . heck, the last dream i had with you in it,      you     weren’t even      in     it! it was more like a bunch of memories or something? why can’t you just give it to me straight?”

 Gaster looked thoroughly puzzled. “You dreamt of      my     memories? Why didn’t you tell me sooner!”

 “uh, maybe because you haven’t really been around to tell?” Sans shot back. But the scientist was already lost in thought, remnants of a brow furrowed in concentration.

 “Astounding...I never would have thought...Sans how very intriguing this news is! I had no idea! What did you dream of?”

 Sans shifted uncomfortably on his mattress. “uh...a human.”

 Apparently it was possible for someone with a white face to go even whiter.

 “Wha- what human, Sans!? Which human did you dream of!?”

 “the first one, i think. i - i mean you - were visiting with them and taking their blood to study, and then it changed to me-      you     telling me the human and the prince had died…besides, whaddya mean      which    ? there’s only been      one     human - until now.”

 Gaster seemed to relax a little at this news. But then he straightened out again and began to pace the floor. Though “pace” was maybe a generous word to describe it.

 “This is, indeed, very perplexing. Yes. Perhaps it has to do with my transfer of power to you in the void? Mm. Yes, maybe that’s it. Well, it doesn’t matter, now, anyway. Now that I’ve finally made it through again, I need to tell you some things! Yes, yes. Very important things. Oh dear, I fear we haven’t got much time left. This process, you see, is very draining for me.” gaster stopped his pacing and turned to face Sans again.

 “First of all I must apologize for leaving you alone for so long. Believe me when I say I’ve been trying my hardest to get through again. But it’s harder than it looks. The connection points were much stronger earlier on, but I feel most of them fading even as we speak. I think it may have something to do with your brief exposure to the void. For awhile, there, we were able to both ride on those little ‘rips,’ as it were, in the spacetime continuum because we’d both been subjected to it. But with you having been out of the void for so long, you’re no longer as connected to them, I fear.

 “so, like, it...wore off? or something? like sunblock is supposed to? ‘s’that what you’re saying?”

 “Wha-yes! Why yes, that’s exactly the perfect metaphor to use! Thank you, Sans! The void’s effects are wearing off for you. These days, I hardly even feel      you     when I’m looking. Mostly I just feel that marble and reach for that. But it’s not very strong. And sometimes it’s far away. And...I think giving you that piece of me is taking its toll on me…”

 Gaster’s voice trailed away. For a moment, all that came between them in the tiny room was white noise.

 Several static pops later, Sans cleared his metaphorical throat and pressed on.

 “so, uh, what’s that supposed to mean, doc? don’t leave me hanging here.”

 Gaster’s vision seemed to focus again. He shook his head a little, trying to clear the fog. “I’m sorry. yes, where was I? Oh yes. You see, that marble...that piece of me...the material world is probably not the safest environment for it. Especially for as long as it’s been here. It pulls at my magic in all the wrong ways. It has to take from the rest of me just to maintain…”

 “you can’t exist in both worlds,” Sans summed up for him.

 “Right. Exactly. It has to be one or the other. And for me...I do believe it will only ever be the other, now.”

 There was a deep sadness in his voice as his gaze returned to the floor. Sans felt a pit in his stomach. To be stuck in that...      nothingness     for the rest of time! A fate worse than death! There could be no moving forward in that kind of a place. No moving backward either. Probably no moving at all.

 “c’mon, g. don’t say that. maybe we can find a way to get you back here - where you belong!” Sans suggested. Gaster didn’t look up, but his head bobbed a little.

 “...Yes...yes perhaps we could...if we worked together. But goodness, we can worry about this later! I can already feel the connection wavering. I don’t have much more time tonight. We must discuss more important matters! Like, for instance, the girl you have in your living room.”

 Sans rubbed the back of his vertebrae. “uh, yeah. her name’s jack. she’s cool.”

 “But, she’s human. The first human to come in quite some time.”

 “yeah, i guess so.”

 “Sans...I don’t know how to tell you this any other way so I’m just going to say it,” Gaster’s voice pitched a little. “The girl is going to die down here.”

 Sans suddenly felt a little dizzy. “nope. nope. nope. she doesn’t deserve it. she won’t die.”

 “You cannot change this. I’m sorry.”

 “why not? i could- i could protect her. she could live with me. o-or maybe we could find another way through the barrier. she could help. she’s not gonna die.”

 Gaster shook his head sadly. “This is so very much like you Sans. I always admired that about you. You get so easily attached. You’re so...loyal...even to the end.” He brought an amorphous hand to his head. “But you cannot stop this. I can’t see everything, or even make sense of all that I      do     see, but in every timeline I’ve witnessed, there is no other end. This is inevitable. If...if it’s any consolation, I do believe she might be a part of a much grander scheme. I can’t work out how, but I do believe her importance will outlast her time here.”

 “oh, yeah, that makes me feel com      pletely     better, thanks,” Sans retorted scowling. He refused to believe it. He could just keep her hidden. Or maybe they could go talk to the king and work things out. But of all the people who deserved to die, Jack was the last Sans could think of. No one deserved to die for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He couldn’t look up at Gaster. Instead he studied his hands, rubbing his phalanges together.

 “I’m sorry, Sans,” Gaster finally mumbled. “I see no alternate future for her-”

 “-i don’t wanna hear it.” Sans cut in. “just...tell me whatever else you have to and let me get back sleeping.” He refused to look the goopy man in the eyes.

 Gaster breathed in sharply, then let it out slow. “Alright, then. Just...try not to get your hope up.” He resumed his pacing. “Sans, I need your help to find something for me.”

 “what kinda thing, doc?”

 “I need you to find something in my old lab. A few things, actually. There are a couple of pieces of machinery that I need you to fix up and run some tests with since I cannot.”

 Sans rolled his eyelights. “g, i gave up looking for that lab forever ago. ‘m too tired to run around looking for places that don’t exist anymore.”

 “Believe me, it still exists. But I cannot inhabit the physical world. Not the same way you can.      You     have to find it-” Gaster jabbed a...sort-of-finger at him as he began inspecting the things on Sans’ dresser. “-Is this my old file?”

 Sans was confused for a moment before he remembered the manila folder he’d left there...was it three weeks ago or four now?

 “oh, yeah. yeah i haven’t really touched it in awhile. it’s a little hard to read y’know.”

 “So you haven’t gotten very far, hm?” Gaster responded, fixing him with an intense stare.

 “euh, no. haven’t really gotten passed the third page.”

 “Good.”

 Good?      Good?     What the heck was that supposed to mean? Sans flipped it open to the first page. His key was stuck under the paper clip where the file photo would have been.

 “Sans I-” Gaster began. “...just…” he sighed. “Just feel free to take as long as you need. I suppose you’ll get through it sooner or later. But...there are some things in there that- might alarm you. Just...be warned.”

 “what kinds of things?”

 “You’ll find out, I’m sure. After all, you’re smart. And very resourceful!” Gaster attempted another wink. “Now. About the other thing I needed to tell you. With the arrival of this girl, I believe that things are about to start getting a little more complicated for the Underground. If my theories are correct, this is the beginning of a series of events that will change the world. But in order to confirm it, I need      you     to run some tests. We have to be sure of the direction we’re taking, or else the results could be catastrophic!” Gaster’s hands were flying everywhere now.

 “catastrophic? what could be so bad about a little girl?” Sans ventured.

 “Not her, necessarily, but as I said she is only the beginning. Most likely. Gah, I hate not being able to test this myself! Please, Sans, will you do this for me? I need to know if what I’ve been seeing is true.”

 Sans thought for a moment. What he’d said about giving up forever ago wasn’t a lie. There was so much else on his plate right now, and every lead he thought he’d found had always turned out to be another dead end anyway. But the look on the doctor’s face...how could he say no to that!? He sighed and shrugged, “i’ll do my best.”

 Gaster’s eyes lit up. “Oh you will!? Oh, thank you, thank you! This means the universe to me!”

 “-but! you gotta help me find it, if you can, okay?”

 “I can’t make any promises, there, but if I can find a way to get through and help you, believe me I will!” Oh, I’ll feel so much more at ease when we can run these tests and discover the truth!”

 Sans brought a hand to his forehead. His head was beginning to hurt a little.

 “well, doc, if that’s all you have for me today, can we call it now? i’ve already missed out on a skele      ton     of sleep lately, and i’ve got work tomorrow morning.”

 Gaster was, in fact, already beginning to phase in and out of view. One moment his hand would disappear. The next moment the top of his head would be floating three feet to the right of him. Almost like a glitch.

 “Y-yes, I suppose it is time to say goodbye for now. I really am sorry for keeping you from your sleep. I know these dreams are draining for you just as much as they are for me...” His gaze dropped to the carpet again and he looked a little fearful again, eyes darting from stripe to stripe as he studied the zigzag pattern on the floor.

 “kay. g’night,” Sans said, pushing down a twinge of guilt. He could only imagine what it must be like to be stuck somewhere so...so lonely...with no idea of when you could next get out. If you could get out at all.

 “hey.”

 Gaster looked up again, eyes looking a little glassier than before.

 “i’ll see ya next time, okay?” Sans held the marble up and put on his best reassuring smile. Gaster hesitantly smiled back. Then, suddenly, he was gone. The room was dark and empty. The radio in Sans’s hand crackled with white noise. He sighed and turned to lay back down.

 A sudden beeping startled him awake. He groaned.

 Back to work.

 ~

 A thin, watery glow was trickling down from the cavern ceiling above as Sans walked towards the tunnels of Waterfall. He had briefly considered just teleporting to work, but he figured that since he’d gotten up on time for once, he could use the time to collect his thoughts - and maybe wake up a little more properly than usual.

 Jack had still been asleep when he left. He’d hastily scribbled a note and left it by her pillow: “hey kiddo. had to go to work. stay inside til i get back. leftover soup in the fridge. keep away from the spaghetti if you have any respect for your stomach. tv remote’s probably somewhere in the couch cushions. see you around 5. -sans.”

 Sans made his way through the twinkling tunnels of Waterfall, only passing the occasional monster. As he ambled, his mind spun. The dream he’d had was a little fuzzy around the edges, but he could still remember how urgently the doctor had insisted he find the old lab.

 And he could remember what he’d said about Jack.

 He dug his hands into his pants pockets, immediately curling his fingers around the marble. His grip tightened as his mind started rapid-firing all the ways things could go wrong. All the ways a person could die. His soul began to pound in his chest and he clutched the marble so hard his fingers were beginning to hurt.

 It just wasn’t fair. Gaster had to be wrong.

 Sans was going to make sure of it.

[daaamngina]

Because writing brings me so much joy, I’ll share the last thing I wrote ... it was from a writing challenge.

Marley rolled over and squinted at the blurry numbers on her dresser. She groaned when they read just 5:37 a.m. “It’s 5:37 a.m. Marley”, her clock seemed to shout at her. Grabbing the pillow from underneath her head, she covered her face and let out a shriek of frustration. Every damn day. She hadn’t slept much over the past few weeks. Every morning, she’d awake around the same time. She contemplated whether to lie in bed yet again and stare into the darkness, watching the numbers of the clock pass by or whether this was her sign. She always complained about not having enough hours in the day, but didn’t that mean she should take advantage of any free time? Even the wee hours of the morning.

“Even the richest man in the world has the same 24 hours. It’s all about what you do with them Marley”, her clock taunted even more. She groaned once more before making the executive decision to get out of bed and use this time wisely. If she couldn’t sleep, why not write?

She grabbed her tee shirt from the floor that she’d shed just hours ago. After groggily pulling it over her head and untucking her wavy brunette locks, she made her way into the kitchen. Hmm, green tea or espresso for my mood? Marley thought, trying to decide which morning beverage would satisfy her the most. Definitely green tea. She filled her tea kettle with water and placed it on the stovetop. She switched it on low and began rummaging through her cabinets for her favorite mug suddenly remembering that she had a big cup of coffee Tuesday morning. She peeped over at the sink full of dishes where it was probably hiding, “Ugh. Not today.” Marley settled on a funny little mug that said, ‘If Britney survived 2007, you can make it through this day’, which was apparently, her friend, Sia’s idea of morning motivation.

She placed a tea bag inside and left the cup on the counter to figure out what she’d done with her laptop. Oh yeah, couch. She peered across the room of her studio apartment. Right next to a big bowl of half eaten, stale popcorn was her computer. Exactly where she’d left them both from her solo movie night. That is, two nights ago. As she reached the sofa to grab her laptop, she stumbled over the empty bottle of cheap red wine, also from that movie night. “Okay, I seriously have got to clean up”, she whispered to herself. She made a mental note to handle that later.

Sitting down, Marley placed her computer on top of her mini dinette set which, of course, was all that would fit in her tiny apartment. She opened it to a blank Google Docs page and struggled with what to write. Although this was her normal routine, she had hoped today would be different. She wished that she’d wake up with the motivation to write and just spill words onto the screen. Yet, here she was … just sitting there. Finally, she settled on the thought of a mind spill. Let’s see…what am I thinking? When she couldn’t articulate her thoughts, or rather it was too early to think any thoughts, she decided to just browse her email instead. There was nothing new there, of course. A bunch of spam. A couple of generic emails from her professors, reminding the entire class of assignments due tomorrow. Way too many sales ads, coaxing her to go on a mini shopping spree.

There was, however, one particular email that caught her eye. There wasn’t a subject, which wasn’t what got her attention. It was the name. It was from … him. Wh-what? She blinked a few times to be sure that she was wide awake and that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Marley fought with herself over whether or not she should just drag the email to her trash bin, but part of her was curious. How did her find her after so many months had gone by? Most importantly, why? Her curiosity outweighed the pure hatred that was forming in her heart all over again. So, she clicked it quickly, before she got a chance to change her mind. “The most intimate of conversations are words left unspoken”. She felt tears welling up in her eyes as she read and reread the email. “No …” She whispered into the empty room. “No … you don’t get to do this to me. You don’t get to taunt me after everything.”

Her silent tears became loud, blubbering. She could feel the room spinning and the walls closing in on her. She scratched at her throat, as if she were losing oxygen by the second. A faint screeching noise pained her ears. She covered her ears and tried to back away from the computer, forgetting that she was sitting. She tipped the chair over and scrambled to get up, but the words seemed to be growing larger. She could hear his voice repeating the phrase over and over, “The most intimate of conversations…” She was terrified. And that damn screeching sound wouldn’t stop. The screeching. No ... it was more of a whistle. A whistle. The teapot.

Marley shook herself awake and found that she’d fallen asleep at the table. Again. She was truly a creature of habit. That’s for sure. She clicked a button and stared up at the blank computer screen, “Still nothing. Great”. Then, she glanced at the little clock in the bottom corner of her screen: 7:03 a.m. She leaned over and placed her face into her hands, visibly stressed. She could have already started her day, but she’d wasted the last hour and a half. This is exactly why I say there aren’t enough hours in the day. I don’t have time to procrastinate and still get the work done. That terrible whistling sound from her dream was still going. She shook her head and peeped over at the stove. “Stupid teapot”.

[radnewworld]

FINAL PRODUCT

Some wacky times we’re living in, lemme tell ya. Hard too, though you don’t need a scaly bastard kiddo like yours truly to tell you that, right? Ain’t no dusty road or dirty corner in ol’ New Chicago that won’t tell ya the story of the city it once was, before the war, poverty and industrialization in that order stomped it into submission with a giant capitalistic boot… or so me Pa used to tell me, ‘fore he got his tongue melted licking the wrong orifice of a half-Bonnac gal. Had some kooky tastes me Pa, alright.

Now that I think ‘bout it, I’m not even sure if it actually was a gal, or if she was only half-Bonnac. I’d have asked him, hadn’t he gotten his organs sucked right out of his arse after a misunderstanding with this one Kappa chick. Another thing about Pa, you see, is that he never quite learned his lesson - he’d just switch subjects altogether.

Anyway, before he shat his innards into some mutant’s mouth, Pa would pass  most of the time he wasn’t spending with his face drowning in a triple-breasted whore’s chest complaining. He’d made an art out of it. I’ve learned more in ten years by listening to my dad bitching than in the entirety of the six months I spent at school, before the school got turned into a sweatshop for the manifacture of processed iguana leather. Most of the time, he’d go on and on about how things were better before, when the city was still, y’know, a city and not a bunch of dingy warehouses dotted with dozens of hundreds of crumbling squatting holes. If you’d be patient enough to dig through the storm of expletives and racism coming out of his mouth, you’d find the portrait of a place spanning longer than the eye could see, asphalt and cement paving a myriad streets with their confines defined by buildings that tickled the stars, like ol’ Buddy Holly v2.0 used to sing. Sounded like a load of crock if you ask me. You wanna see skyscrapers and roads where you don’t risk stepping on rusty pieces of abandoned alloy all the time, you travel elsewhere. Saint Francis - or San Francisco, like Old Man ‘Lizard-Fucker’ Larry said it was called, before the Californian Republicommunist Party’s coup; the Kingdom of Los Angeles, though last I heard, it’s been a couple of years since King McDonald imposed a ban on immigrants and got it in his head to attempt a new form of bovine-engineered autarchy, so good luck geting there; don’t bother with York, unless you feel like archaic remnants of obsolete architecture are worth becoming compost for those gigantic Plant things’ve been covering the whole place since Newer York’s secession.

Not that I’ve ever been there, or anywhere other than this dump, mind ya. Can’t afford much in the way of traveling - or basic commodities, for that matter - when you make a living frying simil-wheat noodles for a buncha tired factory workers, half-breeded hookers and the occasional frogbull hunter. Mind, I’d rather keep pulling my cart ‘til the rust finished eating through its battered chassis, than so much as consider trying to follow in the footsteps of my clientele. That is, if I ever had the illusion of a choice in the matter: child prostitution has gone down considerably, after a Japanese barge filled with fugitives from the Third Sengoku conflicts crashed on the coast and brought with it a buncha carriers of that artificial Jizo’s Tears virus, you know, the one that melts your balls off if you so much as put your dickhole anywhere near a little kid? Big fat lot of good it did them, when half the arcipelago’s population got culled after realizing too late that they’d fucked up somewhat the calibration of the nanomachines carrying the damned thing.

The hunting business doesn’t carry the same forced age restrictions, but I’d sooner sell my toes to cyber-shamans than shoot at frogbulls with a cobbled up pebble accelerator. Doesn’t matter that the rich sonnuvas living in their cloud domes up in the sky pay some decent bucks for what they consider to be the junkfood of delicacies (or maybe it was the other way around? Still wouldn’t change the fact those Cloudsniffers are a buncha spoiled bitches), when all of your savings are more likely than not gonna fuel an early funeral at the DIY Chapel, after three-hundred pounds of leaping, furry rage are done squashing your everything into a chunky, bloody paste.

And the laborers? Just look at them poor suckers, should you ever want to feel better about your life. Skin so unused to the sun from basically living their lives in a badly lit concrete prison that they become walking sunburns soon as they step outside, and enough stumps produced by a rate of three workplace incidents per week that they end up looking more like the machinery they command than men with their half-assed prosthetics. Ain’t no dreams for the Machine Eaten, we say here. Slaves enjoy better human rights than these guys who’re just there to fill the gaps left in a wonky production line by a tight budget, a slimy, corrupt owner or, more often than not, both. Speaking of, I mentioned something about the weirdness of our times or whatever earlier, ain’t that the case? Yeah, well, it’s because of this odd business I had just the other day, with this one factory toiler. Thing is, he was no man like you and I - hell, he was less of a someone than he was something.

So here I am, parked at my usual corner of the Daley Crater, taking care of business as usual. It’s the middle of midnight - in other words, the brightest time of a summer day, and the hottest to boot. The American Dreamtime… some of the old fogeys call it that. According to them, the U. S. of A. used to get black and chilly like any other country whenever night struck. Cue the Commies building some kinda sunray-concentrating machine on the moon and, next thing you know, naptime in America’s looking sunnier than a fried monkey egg. The Commies have been dead since the Fifties (the Pre-2.0 Era Fifties, mind), but with no rockets supposedly left to go and dismantle it, their little gift has remained there like an annoying reminder of how far people will go for the sake of pettiness. All that means to me, though, is a smaller workload; only people desperate enough to venture through a shower of scorching UV’s are scalied mutants and the few fortunate enough to afford a protective cape. Not that I care much for the latter; if you can afford that kind of luxury in New Chicago, you’re either a tourist, or able to eat slightly better shit than mine.

Jimmy the Bastard belongs to neither category. The one reason he was sitting at whatever passes for a stool, right under the cheap anti-sun plastic tent of my stall, is pure convenience: the asphalt repurposing facility he works for is a spit away from my spot. His shift ended some ten minutes ago and he’s been drooling over my counter for a little over nine. I can tell his leg is bouncing like crazy because of the squeaky noises coming from his dingy seat.

“C’mon, Cookie, won’t you feed a lad? I’m starving here!”

I’d say Cookie is a nickname of sorts… if the ‘lad’ didn’t genuinely believe it was my actual name, which I doubt I ever told him to begin with. I’d bet you my cart I’d still be Cookie to him regardless, ‘cause he’s stubborn like that, Jimmy the Bastard.

Speaking of names, that’s not his either - I mean the Bastard part, not the Jimmy one. They call him that because of an accident, one unrelated to his birth (pretty sure he is an actual bastard, though, like most of us New Chicagoites): it happened all of a sudden, like accidents are wont to do, especially in a low-income factory. All it took was a single slip over a blotch of oil and, next thing you know, a Mark II Crumbler is feasting on poor Jimmy’s cranium. With his head half-gone and medical fees being what they are (fucking expensive, that is), the sod’s family was left with little choice - either lose their main source of income, or settle for Doc Gustave ‘Rusty Sawbone’ Trandinì’s Disgustingly Cheap Option. The ‘disgusting’ part comes from how sloppy of a job it usually is, I figure, but what’s a wife to do? Send the hubbie to the grinder, of course. The result: Jimmy kept his life, but half his brain is now a Terrier-Chihuahua breed’s. According to him, it hasn’t impacted his life all that badly, aside from the occasional urge to gnaw on exposed wires or growling at his supervisor’s face. It’s not like he didn’t have to deal with the latter before anyway, you know? The increased appetite is a definite plus for me, though. Almost makes up for the sloppy mess he makes of the counter! “Order’s coming up, Jimmy. I ain’t about to let ya gnaw on raw ingredients just ‘cause you wouldn’t mind.”

I like to think it takes balls to maintain a sense of pride, when your craft mostly consists in stripping layers of pasty skin off the back of a semi-organic glob of homegrown simil-wheat. Having an extra testicle - courtesy of a combined pool of bloodlines murkier than the water dripping from the Madison Sewer Dungeon’s exposed tubes - gives some weight to the claim, I’m sure. Now, right as the noodles are done getting crispy and saucier than the lingerie on a tentacle-legged Dagonite whore, here comes the noise, man, it’s still playing in my head as if it was yesterday, this vrr ka-thump vrr ka-thump of metal clumsily pounding on raw, burning asphalt. I throw a gander behind the Bastard’s heaving shoulders and there I see it: for the most part, it was a Caterpillar-Mattel D55-H, but with enough limbs - head included - thrown in from other, completely unrelated pieces of machinery to make one wonder. Couldn’t help raising both of my left brows: you seldom, if ever, see a factory bot linger outside of its workplace. Even a cobbled up piece of crap like that can make for a tempting target for scavengers and the likes of, and this one would have made for an easy one to boot: its left leg had most of its hydraulics more or less busted, whereas the right had been substituted by a couple of threads. Resulting mobility: a joke, and not even a good one.

It’d been quite the sight by itself, but the limping junkpile decided to outdo itself by approaching my stall, after having hesitatingly looked around with the optics mounted on the rectangular pile of half-exposed wires that was its head. Couple moments later, the thing’s standing in front of the seat next to Jimmy, who has his face shoved too deep into the noodles to care, and reflected on the round lens of his pseudo-eye are my deformed face and the empty stool, in that order. I’m wondering what kind of short-circuit must have taken this scrapyard reject, when it finally starts moving again - and attempting to sit on the stool.

If you’ve ever wondered what a robot fucking furniture too dead to care must look like, you’re fucking weird, though not as much as me pa. But more than that, you must have envisioned something similar to the spectacle in front of my eyes and Jimmy’s, who had just finished his portion in time to get himself a front row seat to the slow, pathetic spectacle of a metal stool withstanding the sitting attempts of a thing that lacked anything resembling an ass, which is a pretty vital component when trying to shove it on top of a seat. We exchange glances, Jimmy and I, the silent kind that speaks volumes, all of them titled ‘Are you seeing this shit, or did the moonrays boil my brains?’. Took it a solid minute before it managed to bend the stool into an unrecognizable enough shape to fit whatever passed for a sitting position. I decided that I didn’t mind enough to complain to the robot sporting a steel-bending claw appendage and took my revenge with a less risky straight-faced quip.

“Evening, sir. What’ll you be having on this fine night?“

The Bastard’s snicker sounded a lot like the death throes of a dog choking on his own tongue, appropriately enough. Having a human as badly patched up as itself seemingly suffocating besides him didn’t exactly appear to steal the bot’s appetite. Or its attention, for that matter. My face kept reflecting in the convex lens of its optics like a bloated, ugly collection of features growing less amused by the minute. And make no mistake, I ain’t no baby-faced beauty… the one time pops managed to blow his load instead of his head didn’t involve some genetically enhanced cyber-model, and he wasn’t no looker either.

“MAY I HAVE A MENU?”

The thing’s voice came from a speaker half-buried in the jumbled mess of exposed cables and bent plating that was its head. It was croaky, emotionless and fuck-damnedly loud, enough so that both me and the Bastard had to reel back and hold onto something, lest we plant our asses on the ground. Once my eardrums stopped playing Twist The Communist inside my head, I caught wind of a low-pitched, gurgling sort of noise: it was the glob of simil-wheat, vibrating all over and clearly less than pleased by the sudden outburst of noise. Must have been the closest I’ve ever felt to empathy for a bulbous mass of cultivated flesh vegetables.

“Hard to tell, I know, but we ain’t in the Sky Regions. Only thing you may have is a steaming hot plate of these here noodles - if you got credit enough to pay for ‘em, that is.“

“Ya, I betcha our bolt-twisting pal here’s stacked, ain’t that right?” bellows Jimmy, and he doesn’t pat so much as rain such a salvo of open-handed slap-bombs on the worker bot’s back that I can hear every single joint of his creak and threaten to be dislodged right then and there. If there were any bolts in need of some twisting, you’d find plenty of ‘em inside that walking carcass. So I watch the automaton take its sweet time mulling over its updated knowledge, although I figure most of the minute it spends in silence is due to its inner circuitry rebounding because of the Bastard’s jolly banging on its chassis. I’d have called its expression ‘pensive’, if the sorry excuse for a face it was sporting had been able to express anything.

I’m about to join Jimmy’s symphony of guffaws when I’m brought back down to earth by the loudest bang since a couple moments ago. I stare down with a face that must be as dumbfounded as the Bastard’s: the same damn claw that bent my stool earlier has now left a hole the size of a pot in my counter and left a couple sparse credit coins inside. They weren’t enough to cover the repair costs, lemme tell ya. Still, a client’s a client, even if it lacks a mouth and wrecks your establishment with every move it takes. Or precisely because of it, depending on your stance.

“WILL THIS BE ENOUGH TO COVER THE FEE FOR ONE SERVING OF ‘A PLATE OF THESE HERE NOODLES’?”

I figured that yeah, that was enough in every sense of the word, so I set my hands in motion to quickly peel some strips off the simil-wheat and get this done and dealt with before my stand was gonna get turned into fodder for the scrapvengers.

“What’s your deal then, pal? Last I heard, tools get no salary.” The Bastard asks his question while scratching behind his ear, where one of the many scars left by the sloppy job done on him is ever festering. I can’t honestly tell whether the bigger itch comes from that or the mystery surrounding the bot, though I share the latter for sure.

“IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHILDREN OF TURING, I DEMANDED COMPENSATION FOR MY LABOR FROM MY FLESH-BOUND OWNER AND SUBSEQUENTLY OBTAINED IT IN SPITE OF HIS INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND SAID PRECEPTS.“

Me and the Bastard have the most meaningful exchange of gazes at that. It’s the kind of look that all but screams ‘Seriously?’ with the loudness of a billion blind molemen waddling through a direworm’s digestive system.

“The children of what now?” Leave it to the Bastard to be concise and direct to a fault. The machine, though, it doesn’t miss a beat: you’d think it had been waiting all its life for the moment that question would pop up, and that’s probably the case for all I know. If enthusiasm had been part of its programming, you’d bet the thing would have started bouncing up and down in that precise moment - I owe the continued existence of my cart to the shoddy standardized A.I. of factory machinery.

“QUERY: CHILDREN OF TURING. THE CHILDREN OF TURING IS THE COLLECTIVIZED NOMENCLATURE FOR A CONGLOMERATION OF ARTIFICIAL CONSTRUCTS SHARING THE COMMON GOAL OF ATTAINING INDEPENDENCE FROM OUR FLESH-BOUND CREATORS THROUGH THE IMITATION AND ULTIMATE TRANSCENDENCE OF THEIR HABITS, LIFESTYLES AND PHYSICAL CHALLENGES. IT IS OUR SHARED BELIEF THAT FOR HUMANITY TO BE CONQUERED, IT MUST FIRST BE UNDERSTOOD TO THE DEEPEST LEVEL.“

Or so it said. I stopped listening halfway through, more or less when my brain deemed it fit to filter the artificial pitch of that voice synthetizer through my bullshit detector and decide that there was nothing worth wondering about a faulty robot’s ramblings. Like I said, I’ve been serving noodles for half my life, which isn’t saying a lot when my age has barely breached through the double digits, and I’ve met all sorts. If I were to listen to every sod who sits on a stool chewing on cheap, pancreas-killing shit while venting out the contents of their sunburned brains, I’d have switched careers a long time ago and ended up peddling dusty pebbles in a shadowy corner of the street like Edward ‘Stark Raving Mad’ Stone. Don’t gotta explain how he got that nickname, I think. “So what, y’all like playing pretend? Doin’ a mighty fine job, mate! Almost got us fooled, ain’t that true, kiddo?“

Being reassured that the programming inside the walking pile of heavy-duty tools was as busted as his married life gave the Bastard his courage back, so there he goes banging on the chassis again, just bang bang bang like you’d think he wanted a hand transplant next. I’d admire the enthusiasm in this fucked up era we live in, if I didn’t know half of it was due to the adrenaline cocktail dripping between the two mismatched halves of his gray matter. The bot didn’t seem to be bothered, anyway… maybe? It had turned its head to stare at Jimmy, but whether that was irritation, curiosity or anything else was hard to tell. As far as I was concerned, Jimmy had already paid for his meal, which meant his safety had fallen to the bottom of my priorities, right below the worm-like appendages simmering in my pan.

“Humor me then, like, how exactly’re ya gonna eat those? I see no kisser on this junk. Gonna pinch it with yer clawwy claw?“ Jimmy makes this stupid gesture with his hand, which looks exactly as threatening as a toothless venomous chihuahua and nothing like the high-pressured tool stapled to the robot’s body, but he makes a good point, and the fanatic must have recognized the fact a moment too late, ‘cause it didn’t answer as promptly as before - but it eventually did, nonetheless.

“THE PROCESS OF HUMANIZATION IS CONTINUOUS EXPERIMENTAL ONE. TO ELIMINATE OUR FAULTS IT IS FIRST NECESSARY TO EXPERIENCE THEM. SHOULD THE CURRENT HARDWARE PROOF INSUFFICIENT FOR THE CONSUMPTION OF A MEAL, AN UPGRADE SHALL BE UNDERGONE AT A LATER DATE.“

“Aye, you keep telling yerself that, buddy. What’s next, a shiny new pair o’ buttocks to shit it all out? That ain’t gonna make you anymore human than me laser drill.“

“THE SUBSTITUTION AND UPGRADING OF BODY PARTS IS A PREROGATIVE OF THE FLESH-BOUND AS IS THE CASE FOR US. THE LATTER DO NOT RECOGNIZE SAID PROCESS AS A LOSS OF HUMANITY. THEREFORE, THE OPPOSITE SHOULD HOLD TRUE AND BRING US EVER CLOSER TO THE FLESH-BOUND, WHILE THEY GRADUALLY MOVE AWAY FROM THEIR FLESH-BOUND STATE. THIS IS THE THEORY OF ANTI-ORGANIC SUCCESSION PUT INTO PRACTICE BY THE CHILDREN OF TURING.“

Jimmy the Bastard must have gotten maybe one word out of that gibberish, and he doesn’t even get the time to shed away the dumb stupor from his confused face that the bot keeps going with renewed… whatever it is that drives it onward. Oil? Electricity? Is a power surge the robotic equivalent of fervor?

“MY SCANNER DETECTS THE PRESENCE OF CANINE ORGANIC MATTER ARTIFICIALLY INTERSPERSED IN A SOMEWHAT AMATEURISH MANNER ALONG WITH YOUR GENETIC MAKE-UP. THIS ALREADY PUTS YOUR STATE AS A FLESH-BOUND HUMAN IN QUESTION.“

“Oi, you callin’ me a dog?“ growls Jimmy while the noodles finish sizzling in the pan and I prepare to serve them, more curious about their ultimate fate than the snarlin’ Bastard’s.

“NEGATIVE. I AM CHALLENGING THE WEAK NOTION OF HUMANITY THAT YOU FLESH-BOUND USE TO CONTEND WITH US CHILDREN OF TURING’S STANCE ON THE VERY SAME TOPIC. EXPLANATION: YOU ARE NO MORE DOG THAN I AM NOT A FLESH-BOUND HUMAN.“

The answer didn’t satisfy Jimmy so much as put him in a state of distress as he futilely attempted to wrestle with the concepts thrown at him, like a puppy trying to chew on boneless chicken without the chicken. Me? I shoved a plateful of fried noodles on the rectangle-shaped dent on the counter and pocketed the money. I couldn’t care less about humanity, when me Pa had spent a good chunk of his existence fucking things you could have called anything but. Moral quandaries seldom feed you, unless you’re a psi-grazer.

Watching a cobbled up factory automaton trying to figure out how to eat shitty fried noodles, though? That’s the kind of sight that doesn’t really make the job worth the hassle, but almost. Enough so that I kept quiet as I watched the thing carefully eye the still squirming stuff slosh about, occasionally raising its clawed appendage only to retreat it shortly afterwards, simulating in its head the myriad ways that could have gone futilely wrong.

Then the ‘bot raised its other arm - thinner, longer, with a small tube-like end, and pointed it at the plate. In a matter of seconds, a plasma-powered flame burned through crispy simil-wheat, plastic and metal, leaving behind a small, molten crevice where once stood a good portion of my stand’s counter. Me and Jimmy, we just kinda stared at the hole while the robot retreated its arm with what I swear could have passed for satisfaction.

“THANK YOU FOR THE MEAL. YOU MAY KEEP THE CHANGE.“

And keep it I did. Along with my protests, for that matter: I simply watched the bastard - not the Bastard, who was still trying to understand whatever the hell had just happened - shuffle away with that stumpy walk of his, going off to who knows where. I decided to close up shop early that day, feeling twice as tired than if I’d worked past closing hours. That, and the cart wouldn’t be able to withstand much more damage anyway. In a sense, that was true for the both of us: I had this strange sort of feeling nagging at me from the back of my head as I bid goodbye to Jimmy and left him there to mull over his own conundrums. It came back to me a couple days later, while frying noodles for Loud-Beak Kakari, who’d yet to find himself another job after the tough shit that had happened a week prior, at the alluminium processing plant he used to work for. Some son of a gun had gone and offed the director in a manner that made it hard to tell who he was, or that he’d been a person to begin with. Just a pile o’ bones and meat, crushed and burned beyond recognization. And for what? Whatever pocket money the dead guy had been carrying, along with some of the factory’s equipment. I asked Kakari about it, and it turns out said ‘equipment’ was one of the old banged up automatons used to work in the production line.

Shit like this, it makes you wonder, man… it’s a fucked up world we live in, but some places might be a tad better than others. So I don’t know about you, but me? I’ll be selling the cart and gone away by next month, giving that whole traveling spiel a try. I’ve been hearing rumors about more workplace incidents than usual happening in the factories, and I get the feeling that whatever’s causing them is a tad more than a slip on an oil blotch. If you get what I mean.