#not my usual stuff and more android charles will be on the way... soon

[androidcharles]

The Tragic Tale of Cody Night

Gonna probably file this one under "not posting on AO3" but anyway, a bit of a sort of backstory on Cody Night and how they got to be who they are, against their better wishes. I'm gonna also classify this under Whump and Hurt with No Comfort. There's mentions of suicide, of course in terms of triggers and some bad transformation stuff in general.

Other then that, I hope you... enjoy the story?

Alex and Eric belong to @bluetorchsky

While not mentioned by name, Caissy Rogers belongs to @lovelygirlnicole15

Cody woke up that morning, stretching as they gazed at the calendar, feeling a strange pit in their stomach. Their birthday was in a few days. And after that, it would be another week before the anniversary of them being hired at the CCC. They let out a small sigh as they pushed themselves out of bed, heading into the bathroom to brush their teeth and comb their hair.

They looked at themselves in the mirror: dusty brown hair, bright light blue eyes. They smiled as they took a deep breath to center themselves before they exited their room.

They had opted to live in the complex in the dorms, due to the fact that they didn’t want to live with their aunt anymore. They didn’t have much anyway, so it wasn’t like it was a huge loss. They casually ignored the people passing by, saying good morning to them as they concentrated on getting to the cafeteria to get coffee and their bacon/egg omelet.

“Hey, Cody! The usual today?” the cafeteria staff lady said, a big warm smile on her face. Cody only nodded as they waited patiently for it to be prepared before heading off to a table to eat by themself.

After eating, they deposited their tray and dishes onto the conveyor before they headed to their work station. They had only been a class 3 anomaly inspector for about a month, but they were already impressing their coworkers around them. Especially their mentor, a man by the name of Jet Rocket, whom Cody was growing more and more attached to.

They hated it, really, growing attached to the first person to give them the time of day, but something about how Jet looked at them while he rambled on and on about his little brother in the military (Arnie? Armand? They forgot really.) and other various subjects made them feel comfortable around them.

Either way, once they headed to their desk to report for duty, they were stopped by Jet himself, a big smile on his face.

“Hey, Cody! Today’s your lucky day!” Jet said, “We have a very special assignment for you.”

“Huh?” Cody only tipped their head to the side as Jet gestured for them to follow, walking through some levels they weren’t even allowed in. Which was strange, because Jet often dealt with anomalies up to level 15. Cody got a bit worried as they headed to the airlock of the generator room of the level 9 wing, where three other employees were waiting for them.

“What took you so long, Rocket? We were gonna start without you!” one of them said, smirking.

“Had to pick up our young’n here,” Jet said, slapping Cody’s back.

“Ah, that’s right, you’ve almost been here a year. Yeah, letting them see just how intricate and powerful our generators are is mandatory,” a second employee said.

“And dangerous! Not only are they powerful and intricate, but also highly sensitive! If something goes horribly wrong-” the third employee piped up before Jet put up his hand.

“Now you can stop your rambling, George, because nothing will go wrong. Besides, the boss said it was a minor thing, so we should be done in about thirty minutes,” Jet said, “Ready to go Cody?”

“Um, sure,” Cody said as one of the employees opened the airlock hatch.

“Alright, once we enter the airlock, there’s a suit to put on. Do not take it off under any circumstances. Contact with the dark matter can have some drastic consequences,” Jet said.

“D-dark matter?” OK, now Cody was a bit worried. Minor little chaos anomalies they could handle, but dark matter?

“Nothing will go wrong kid,” one of the employees reassured him as he slipped on his suit, “There’s a lot of precautions in place in case an emergency occurs and we’re right behind you. We’ll do the heavy lifting and you can just observe.”

“Nah, Cody can help too. They just need some guidance. Right Cody?” Jet smiled at them from behind the glass of their suit as Cody nodded his head.

“Right.”

“Alright, let’s move out.” The group exited the airlock as they walked into the chamber. Cody looked up and saw a small machine surrounded by several gauges and dials. A window in the small machine revealed a strange liquid as it moved and pulsed with dozens of little stars. Cody was almost mesmerized by it as Jet called for them to meet with the group.

“Alright, you need to release the pressure Rodney. George, check the gauges to make sure that nothing is destabilizing. Let us know if something is out of place. Jet, you need to take these tools and start unscrewing this stabilizer. Do it carefully, because any wrong moves will cause the machine to spark,” one employee said, “Cody, just stay behind Jet and do as he says.”

“Yes sir…” Cody positioned himself behind Jet as he got to work watching him unscrew the stabilizer.

“Cody, hand me the other stabilizer Monty brought in, alright?” Jet asked. Cody handed it off to him as he quickly switched the stabilizer with the other one.

“This part you have to do in at least thirty seconds. If you don’t, the whole thing goes up,” Jet said, “It’s pretty intense.”

“Why are we using dark matter to generate energy?” Cody asked.

“It’s efficient. And it’s in everything,” Jet said, “It’s the only way to power the things we have going here.”

“It’s in everything? Including us?” Cody asked.

“Pretty much. Though, dark matter is also very dangerous. It can distort your body and do some funky shit to it,” Jet said, “It should be fine though. As long as we repair it safely and carefully, it won’t escape. I promise.”

“And if does?”

“Then I’ll make sure you’re the last person it gets onto.” Cody felt a bit touched by that comment and for the first time ever, felt like they belonged.

The rest of the repairs were a bit boring after that though, but after some time had passed, the group had finally finished everything up. Cody still felt like they could have done more to help, but other then checking a few dials and handing off a few parts, they weren’t exactly much of a big help.

“Alright, time to head out!” Jet said.

“I was hoping this would take a bit longer. I’ve got a mountain of paperwork on my desk I am not looking forward to,” George muttered as he went to open the airlock. There was moment of silence as he attempted, over and over again to open the airlock before he gazed at them with a bit of worry in his eyes.

“Guys… the door’s stuck.”

“Damn! I told them that they need to come down here to check the doors every now and again and look what happened! Slackers, the lot of them…” Monty shouted.

“Now now, let’s calm down. The emergency phone is over there. Cody, you know how to operate it, right?”

“Y-yeah…” Cody said.

“OK, I know you’re panicking, but everything is going to be OK, you hear me? Just dial the number and let them know we’re in here. They have a manual override they can use to unlock the door they can get us out.”

“It’s called the jaws of life, Jet,” Rodney said, smirking a bit.

“It’s OK, just call them,” Jet said. Cody felt a bit reassured as he walked to the phone and dialed the number.

“What’s going on down there?”

“The door… it’s stuck and we need to get out. We’re on level 9 in the dark matter reactor,” Cody said.

“Section A or B?”

“The one… that was broken?”

“B? Well, we’ll be right there. It’ll be a few minutes, so sit tight, OK?” As the other person on the line hung up the phone, suddenly he heard a concerned voice behind him.

“Uh, guys? The stabilization is going down!”

“What? I installed the new stabilizer properly! How could that be happening?”

“Jet, what did you do?”

“Let’s not play the blame game. C’mon we need to fix this before-”

It all happened so fast. First a crack appeared on the window of the dark matter reactor. Then, a pool of dark liquid started to rush out, as the group tried to head towards Cody, who was frozen in fear.

“CODY!!” Jet shouted as he ran towards them and picked him up. The dark liquid lapped at Jet’s feet as his legs wobbled.

“JET! NO!” Suddenly an explosion went off somewhere behind Jet and Cody as he fell to the ground. Cody tried to scramble to get to the corner as alarms went off around them. They heard another explosion, a scream, maybe? Or maybe they screamed, who knows.

And suddenly their suit tore on one of machines.

And the dark matter started to seep in.

Cody felt their head spinning as they blacked out, only for a few minutes, before finally coming to, hearing the CCC employees voices going nuts. They tried to call out to them as they grabbed them. They could only hear little snippets of what they were saying.

“They’ve been exposed! Be careful!”

“This is bad!”

“Quarantine, they have to get quarantine right away!”

- - - - -

Cody must have fallen asleep at some point, because when they woke up, they were in a small padded room. They looked around, trying to figure out where they were when they saw the medical wiring attached to them. But that wasn’t the worst part. They gazed at the dark matter on their arm and part of their leg, feeling a bit woozy as they glanced around.

“Good evening, Cody.” Cody jumped at the intercom, shaking as they looked around.

“Where… where am I? Where’s Jet? Where are the others!? Are they safe?”

“Now, Cody, before we give you the details, we might as well tell you what happened to you first. You were very lucky, because there was a lot of explosions occurring in that room. However, you were exposed to dark matter because of the tear in your suit. So unfortunately, we have to keep you in quarantine until we can find a way to get it off. Which we have before, it won’t be hard. But it may take a while,” the voice explained.

“What about the others? What about Jet and George and-”

“They are… they unfortunately perished in the meltdown. Jet was protecting you when he was impaled by the explosion. Another had been injured too greatly by the explosion. And two of our employees were consumed by the dark matter. We’re lucky the same didn’t happen to you,” the voice explained. Cody felt a bit dizzy as they lay back down on the bed, feeling like they had just swallowed a ton of bricks.

“I’m sorry about all this Cody. But we’re gonna do everything we can to get that dark matter off of you. You won’t have to worry much if we do this right,” the voice said, “You can call me Dr. Eliza. I’m here with Dr. Quartz and Dr. Thorn. We’re gonna do everything in our power to make sure you make it out of this alright? Alright?”

Cody nodded their head, not sure how to feel anymore as the voice on the intercom said:

“Let’s get started.”

- - - - -

One whole month had passed since the dark matter had attached itself to Cody’s body.

Despite all the treatments that the CCC had attempted, there were none that were truly working. The dark matter had spread much more since that day. It was now covering their entire arm and threatening to spread to their torso. The dark matter on their legs had spread to their pelvic region and was already making its way down to their other leg.

They didn’t know how to really feel anymore. They were scared, but at the same time, they were angry. They were sad, but at the same time, they felt like they had to accept his fate. They wanted to die so badly…

And yet the urge to go on was stronger then ever.

Dr. Thorn was the only person who was watching them right now. The other two scientists had gone out to get lunch, with the promise of bringing Cody some. They said they were getting StickDonalds and Cody reluctantly agreed, which was weird, because last they checked, they hated StickDonalds. Maybe the dark matter was messing with their sense of taste.

Suddenly the door opened to the airlock and they jumped, looking up and being greeted with… a strange man? Not one of the scientists, that’s for sure. Only a strange, very old looking man with bright blue eyes and dusty brown hair entered the room, holding a brief case in it’s hand and wearing a sharp looking blue suit.

“Who are you? You know if you don’t wear a suit, you’ll be exposed to the dark matter,” Cody said, their voice raspy.

“I can assssssure you Mixxxxxter Night that I am very familiar with the propertiessss of… dark matter,” the man said as it gazed at Cody.

“I see that you’ve been… adjussssting to your circumstances despite your attitude,” the man said, pacing around Cody as they shook with a bit of fear.

“What do you mean?” Cody asked.

“Well, obvioussssllyy, the universe exxxxistsss in sort of… balanccesss, Mixter Night. Balanccess that require some form of sacrifice, regardless of how the third party feellssss. You know perfectly well what I mean, Mixxxxter Night,” it said.

“Who… who are you?” Cody said softly.

“You can call me Mr. Mann for the time being. I am what you call… an auditor of sortssss. I go through the multiverse looking for circumstancesss such as yours and correct them. For instance… that explosion that occurred in the dark matter reactor… you would have died if not for my interference…”

“What? You… you made me into this?” Cody said, shaking a bit as they gazed at their arm.

“That was purely coincidental. I can assssure you that you would have sssuffered… grave injury if I hadn’t interfered with you, Mixter Night,” Mr. Mann said. Cody gritted his teeth, feeling tears surface they shook.

“You did this to me… you… you made me like THIS! I may never go back to normal! I-!” Cody started to shout as Mr. Mann shook his head.

“I can’t take full resssposibility for your state, Mixxter Night. I can only tell you what happened and what may happen in the future becausssse of this…” Mr. Mann said, “Just know that I may be in need of your… servicccesss in the future.”

“Like hell I’d help you with anything,” Cody snarled.

“You may not have a choice Mixxxter Night… You may not… have a choiccceee…” Mr. Mann said softly as it walked out of the chamber.

“Cody?” Dr. Thorn said, “Cody are you feeling alright? You sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

“There was… a man…” Cody said softly, not sure how to describe it.

“What kind of man?” Dr. Thorn said, trying but failing to hide the concern in his voice.

“A man with a briefcase. It had blue eyes and brown hair like mine…” Cody said.

“Oh greater ones above…” They suddenly heard talking on the other side of the glass window that concerned them greatly. Something about an anomaly, level 15.

“It’s alright Cody, that man is… completely normal,” Dr. Thorn said, “Dr. Quartz is bringing your food in now. I know you said you didn’t like StickDonalds, but we got you something anyway. I hope that’s OK.”

“It’s fine…” Cody muttered, gazing at the door as it opened the smell of fried greasiness entered their room. At least they were feeding them for the time being.

Cody never saw that strange entity again though.

- - - - -

Cody was in a horrible mental state.

The dark matter had successfully managed to spread to a majority of their torso, abdomen, and pelvic region. The tests they had used to successfully remove dark matter in the past were not working. They felt the dark matter creeping up on their neck as part of their arm and head were the only things left that had not been completely covered.

They noticed their hair and eyes had changed as well. Their hair was slowly turning lavender with bits of sparkles in them while their eyes had become dark blue. Their mouth had become a big black hole on the inside, with little specks of stars in them, which meant that the inside of their body was changing drastically as well.

The scientists had tried everything to get the dark matter off, from frequency tests, to electrocution to a strange scraping device that felt like someone was peeling off their skin. But the dark matter was still there.

“Cody, are you alright?” they heard Dr. Eliza ask. They gazed at the ground, trying to feel anything, but could feel nothing but pain and hurt. They gazed at their hands, feeling tears spring into their eyes.

“I want to die,” Cody softly whispered.

“Cody…”

“I want to die so badly… why won’t you guys just kill me already?” Cody said, shaking as they gazed at the window, not even able to see the scientists that were… at this point torturing them.

“Cody, I know you feel awful, but-”

“BUT WHAT!? I’M GONNA BE STUCK LIKE THIS FOR THE REST OF ME LIFE! I DON’T WANT TO LIVE ANYMORE!”

“CODY!”

“PLEASE, PLEASE, JUST KILL ME ALREADY! I WANT TO DIE SO FUCKING BADLY, JUST KILL ME ALREADY, PLEASE!”

The scientists sat in stunned silence as Dr. Thorn rushed to adjust the collar on Cody’s neck. They had put it on them to keep them stable, but their mental state was causing the collar to work in overtime.

Meanwhile, Dr. Quartz pulled something out from under his desk and walked towards the door.

“Milo, what are you doing!?” Dr. Eliza said.

“Granting their damn wish. I can’t take it anymore…” Dr. Quartz said.

“Dr. Quartz, you know that this isn’t ethical! If the Director finds out about this-”

“The Director should come down here their self and see the state this kid is in!” Dr. Quartz shouted, “I’m pretty sure they’d understand once they find out…” Dr. Quartz exited the room and it was quiet for a few minutes as Dr. Eliza felt sick to her stomach, gazing at Cody, who was grasping their head, muttering to them self.

Finally, after what seemed like several hours, Dr. Quartz appeared once again, a gun in his hand as he walked towards Cody. Cody gazed up at him as he aimed the barrel of the gun squarely at their forehead. The fear and hurt in their eyes was pretty obvious, but they didn’t seem to fight back.

“Kid… are you sure you wanna do this?” Dr. Quartz asked, “You know that… this isn’t the answer right? There are several CCC employees who have suffered a fate similar to yours. They go on anyway. I’m not saying you have accept what you’re becoming. I’m just saying there’s so much more you can do. Please… don’t make me do this.”

Cody only stared at Dr. Quartz blankly.

“Kid, I’m begging you, I don’t want to do this! Just say the word and I’ll walk out right now!”

“Shoot me…” Cody was shaking, they were obviously afraid, but they nodded their head, “Just kill me already… please…”

“Cody…”

“PLEASE!” Dr. Quartz shut his eyes, reluctantly pulling the trigger. Dr. Thorn watched in horror as Dr. Eliza covered her eyes.

The sound of the shot reverberated through the room as the bullet went square into Cody’s forehead. Their eyes were filled with tears as they felt the pain of the shot go through their skull, but didn’t feel any different. They didn’t black out, they didn’t feel like they were going to the other side.

Instead, a glowing lavender liquid began to pour out of their head, slowly in little blobs as Dr. Quartz stared at it with great fear.

“Oh no…” Dr. Quartz said softly, reaching into the suits pocket and scooping it up. Cody passed out as Dr. Quartz exited the room, being careful to take the gun with him as he entered the observation room again.

“Dr. Quartz, are you OK?” Dr. Eliza asked, trying to hide her relief that the gun didn’t work.

“You see this shit? It’s liquid stardust. Magicians consider this a miracle. It’s like an ultimate cure-all, comparable to the philosopher’s stone,” Dr. Quartz said, “If that kid has this in their body, it’s far too late. They’re never going to die like a human. They’ll never die at all.”

“I’ve increased the stability on their collar but… it looks like the dark matter is spreading some more,” Dr. Thorn said.

“Milo…” Dr. Eliza said softly as Dr. Quartz set down the jar before angrily shoving some papers on the ground, sitting down at his chair as he shook.

“Dammit… Dammit all… we can’t save them… we can’t fucking save them…” Dr. Quartz said softly.

- - - - -

Cody remembered the day it happened like an awful nightmare. One minute they had crawled into bed, unable to really talk or see much due to the dark matter spreading across their face and the next they had felt every emotion at once in their bodies.

Pain, misery, despair, hurt, laughter, sadness, destruction, it was all there. The feeling of hatred and sorrow, combined with the misery of acceptance and hope had overflowed in their body like a glass full of water under a sink, the faucet continuously running with a mixture of emotions.

They didn’t know what had transpired in those few days, but by the time things had finally calmed down and they had stabilized into a human form, they were practically miserable. They stared at the reflection in the mirror. Their whole body, head to toe was now dark matter. They had completely turned into dark matter.

They were no longer human.

They looked human, sure, but their humanity was put into question as they spent the past week or so after that enduring tests that made them feel much worse. It was very clear they had no way of offing them, so they just had to accept that this was their fate. They would sometimes go to sleep on those nights, hoping they’d wake up on the day before it happened.

Hoping that they would wake up in their room, thinking what an awful nightmare this was and they would go back to doing their work like it never happened at all.

They were nineteen years old now. They would be nineteen for the rest of their life, no matter how many birthdays passed.

After a whole week of this, the scientists had come in bearing a new collar. They carefully put it on them and adjusted it so that they would remain stable as long as they were wearing it. Apparently it came with a special lock that pinched the back of their neck, but they didn’t worry about it too much.

“Cody, we’re going to ask you a few questions. I hope that’s OK with you,” Dr. Eliza said, “First, what is your full name?”

Who’s Cody? I’m Cody. I guess I’m Cody. I don’t feel like that guy anymore…

“Cody?” Dr. Eliza asked.

Right… I’m Cody.

“Cody Achilles Night,” Cody said.

“What gender are you?”

“I’m… nonbinary.”

“Pronouns?”

“They/them.”

“Who is the person that ran your department before your accident?”

“Dr. Jared Wheeler.”

“Where do you live?”

“Manhatten, outside of New Stick City, in the CCC dorms.”

“Alright and one last question. Are you alright?”

Cody gazed at their mattress, trying to figure out if they should answer honestly or tell a lie.

“No… I’m not. I hate everything. I just want to be dead…” Cody said softly.

“Well, that’s what we figured,” Dr. Eliza said, “Alright, this new collar should hopefully work as intended, but just in case, we’ve brought a sort of… test subject forward.”

Dr. Quartz stepped forward, not wearing a protective suit as Cody gazed at him. This was the same person who had attempted to put a bullet through their head, the same person who had attempted to kill him.

“Kid, I need you to touch my hand. And… if you can touch without infecting me, we’re gonna take you out of this room and… you’re gonna try to live your life. Hopefully.” You could almost feel the sadness in his eyes as Cody reluctantly put his hand forward before touching Dr. Quartz’ hand. It didn’t do much, though it had been so long since Cody had felt human contact that they almost wanted to grab his hand and just hold it.

Unfortunately, Dr. Quartz had pulled back before they could do anything as he nodded his head.

“Good… that new collar is a lot more powerful then the old one. That’ll not only keep them stable, but they’ll be able to do the work they need to do,” Dr. Thorn said as he started to take off his own suit.

“Alright, Cody. We’re gonna get your all dressed up and you can follow us to the examination room for your next steps,” Dr. Eliza said. Cody nodded their head as they followed behind them, not exactly feeling as excited as the other scientists were as they were given a plain white t-shirt and a pair of CCC brand sweatpants.

They were lead to an examination room and told to wait a few minutes, but it had been about fifteen before a new face had popped in, the scientists right behind him.

“Alright, according to Dr. Eliza, Thorn, and Quartz, you seem to be stable enough to continue work physically. However, they know that mentally you aren’t in a good place. You would often talk about how you wanted to die in the later weeks of the procedures and Dr. Quartz, against all protocol, attempted an unauthorized life ending scenario,” the doctor said as Dr. Quartz looked away, a bit ashamed.

“However, if it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t have known how deeply the dark matter had affected you. So here’s what’s happened, in case you need a refresher; The dark matter that has infected your body has completely covered you and changed your molecular structure. You are no longer classified as a human being as a result of this. So you have two options at this point.

“One is that you’ll be sent a remote town near a CCC facility, where you’ll be monitored for the rest of your life. The other option is to continue your employment here. However, considering your obviously damaged physiological and mental state, not only will you be demoted back to level 1, but you will also be given routine therapy sessions with our company therapist until they determine that you’re mentally stable enough to be promoted,” the doctor said, “So, what do you want to do?”

A voice in the back of their head, a familiar one, seemed to tell them to go to the town. For some reason, that was itching in the back of their mind. But at the same time, they knew if they went out there, they would never be the same again.

Either option sounded awful.

Spend the rest of their isolated in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other unlucky CCC agents or continue to work here where they could potentially hurt them self even more.

But on the other hand, knowing that something was telling them to go to the town was not exactly the best option. So they had no choice.

“I’ll just stay here… and continue my work,” Cody said softly.

“Alright. We’ll let the overseer of the level one division that you’re on your way back. We’ll get you acquainted with your therapist and of course, we’ll try everything in our power to make sure you feel comfortable despite your circumstances,” the doctor said, “Do you have any further questions?”

“Are you sure you can’t just kill me?” Cody said. Dr. Quartz exited the room quietly as the doctor sighed.

“How about we start by getting you acquainted with your therapist?”

The next several minutes were a bunch of paperwork, talking, and other nonsense that Cody didn’t really pay much attention to. They didn’t pay much attention to the therapist they had received. Not like it really mattered, because they were going to have to see them twice a week for the next several weeks.

After that, they were sent back to their room. But the place looked unfamiliar to them. Almost foreign, like they had just moved in for the first time. They gazed at the desk near their bed and saw the pictures of them self, when they were younger to when they first got hired. The pictures looked foreign as well, like they were pictures of someone else.

They headed into the bathroom and stared at them self in the mirror. Their hair, now a striking and sparkly lavender, was a mess, with half of it covering their face. Or lack thereof, as they were now faceless, with a void covering where their face was. They stared at their hands, shaking as their eyes began to water as they covered their face.

They didn’t know who they were anymore.

- 20 YEARS LATER -

Cody rose out of bed, wondering if they should just call in. They had felt like shit for the past twenty years since the accident and calling in didn’t really feel like an option anymore.

Since the accident, they had become more increasingly distant with their coworkers, only exchanging hellos and goodbyes casually and only speaking up when it involved work.

They didn’t think much of it anyway. After all, in their mind, they could really never be friends with anyone or anybody. But apparently that all changed not too long ago.

They walked out of their new dorm room as a group in the hall greeted them, all smiles as Cody let out a half-hearted “Hey” response. The CCC had recently transferred them to West Mesa, where there were apparently an anomaly that had caught their interest. An anomaly that happened to be a former employee/test subject of the organization.

“His name is Henry Stickmin,” he remembered his boss telling him, “I know it’s a stretch, but he was recently involved in several events that made him a… center of interest to us. So that’s why we need you to keep an eye on him and his little friend group. Make note of everything he does and above all else, don’t make contact with him if you can help it. Just observe.”

So they had their bags packed and sent on their way to the West Mesa facility. And there, they met some pretty interesting folks. Very friendly too… he had forgotten the further south he went down the Great Continent, the more friendly people had gotten.

Still, they went to the cafeteria to get their usual coffee with a bacon/egg omelet. Along the way, they saw Alex Springcurl, who was surprisingly by himself at the moment.

“Good morning Cody!” Alex said cheerfully. Cody jumped at the greeting as he stared at Alex, who was all smiles, “How are feeling this morning?”

“I feel… not really great…” Cody said, letting out a sigh, “I’m sorry, do you need something?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if you wanted to sit with us today,” Alex said. Cody shook their head.

“No thank you…” Cody said before they walked off. Eric had just walked by them, carrying two trays as he looked at his husband hopefully.

“No good. I swear that kid is a tough egg to crack,” Alex said, “But I think if we apply a bit more pressure.”

“Let him come around on his own. I’m pretty sure once they really get used to the place, they’ll be more then happy to try to make some friends,” Eric assured him.

“Yeah, he’s only been here a week after all. Those New Stick City folks sure are distant, aren’t they?” Alex said.

Cody went through the line as the cafeteria lady tried to strike a conversation before handing them their food, a little ticked off at their coldness as they found an isolated area of the cafeteria before sitting down to eat.

“Hey, Mixter Night?” Cody looked up to see a young lady with bright eyes with snowflakes in them and beautiful blonde hair standing near him, all smiles.

“I noticed that you’re always eating by yourself here and I was wondering if maybe you wanted to sit with my friends. I promise we’re all friendly!”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“But-”

“I said, I’m fine! Just leave me alone, please…” The girl looked a bit heartbroken as she walked off, glancing at Cody one last time before heading back to her group.

They would just have to adjust and get used to this. They glanced at their hand as they sighed, trying to keep them self from crying.

All they had to do was just work. No distractions, no funny business, no anything.

Even if it made them feel awful.

[mica949]

Toppat Android!Charles lore Slight warning for robot violence!

Burt pretended he didn’t like Charles’s presence, but he caught him smiling every now and then. 

He was jumping back and forth between jobs, trying to find something in the clan that he would like to do for the foreseeable future. For now, he was working in intel and communications. Along with Burt, it was his job to send messages to the different divisions: the  ones who stayed on earth and ones who went up to the space station. 

It was actually pretty fun. He was learning code, leading how to encrypt messages so the government wouldn’t be able to read them. In fact, he was getting curious…

“Hey Burt.” He ignored the way the other sighed as he spoke up again. “How good are you at decoding stuff?”

Burt looked him up and down, then spoke in his usual monotone. “Pretty good. Only been doing this for about 20 years.”

Wow, 20 years? That was intense. But hey, boosted his chances. “Do you think you could decode my coding? And like, change stuff?”

Charles couldn’t read the expression on Burt’s face. “Would you… want that?”

“Oh yeah. There’s like, a lot of memories that are blocked off, and I know they put in an anti-Toppat coding cus my head keeps screaming at me. Stuff like that, y’know?” He shrugged his shoulders. 

“I probably could. I’ve done this kind of thing before.” Now it was Charles’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Burt ignored him though, reaching under a table and pulling out a series of cables. “What kind do you use? I got USB, USBC, parallel, all that stuff.” 

“Oh. Uh, USBC, I think.” He took his headphones off, feeling the small port behind his left ear. “Yeah, USBC.” 

After looking through the cables, Burt pulled out a long red cord and abruptly stuck it in the port. Charles was about to complain, but suddenly felt completely overwhelmed at how much information there was. The port allowed for a two sided link, and from his place in his chair Charles could feel the dormant mechanisms in the station, just waiting for orders. 

“Wow. That’s… intense.” It felt as though a crowd had its eyes on him, waiting for him to lead. He had to squeeze his eyes shut and send through the port go away, I’m not in charge here, just getting some adjustments, I’ll be out of your nonexistent hair soon.

Burt was silent, but Charles could hear clicking on the computer and feel his folders being opened and looked through. It was honestly kind of violating, but he was used to it. Just forced himself to take deeper breaths.

“They used the same encrypting for you that they use for their ‘top secret’ messages. What idiots.” Charles poked an eye open, seeing Burt look exhausted as he looked through his mind. “Who wrote this? Objective C is so outdated.”

“Well, I was made a long time ago. It’s probably just easier to keep it that way.”

“Still. You’d be able to run a lot faster on C++.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m so dumb.” He said with a chuckle.”

“…You’re not dumb.” Burt muttered. Honestly, Charles’s heart felt a bit warmed. “Oh, you’re right. They do have anti-toppat coding. Seriously, who programmed you? There’s so many if/elses in here. I could replace them with a switch and…”

Charles chuckled. He’d never seen Burt so passionate about anything. “Well. Just delete it. Or don’t, if that would break me.”

“Give me just a second.”

Oh man, the feeling of his coding being rewritten was always disorienting. He closed his eyes again, busying his hands with fiddling with a fancy studded band on his pointer finger. His first steal, and honestly it was good for destressing.

Huh. Oh wow. All that anxiety about Burt and Henry and Ellie just… disappeared. That was weird. “I’m assuming you did it, so, thanks.” 

Burt was silent. Charles could hear more clicking and scrolling, followed by some typing. Then a scoff. “The archiving system is so basic. You have no idea how much I want to rewrite all of this.”

Charles didn’t quite understand. It sounded complicated. “Can you just… get rid of it? Delete some stuff?” 

“I think if I just deleted this line, then…”

Oh. He remembered now. The others. The explosion. Back when he was pilot-delta-9.

Intel-alpha-2, who almost got decommissioned for stepping on the foot of a soldier who bullied Charles. Sol-beta-1, who acted tough but couldn’t fall asleep without a plushie as big as they were. Hell, around a hundred little robots who all looked forward to being on the front line once they passed training. 

Then one night, a siren sounded seconds before their building was filled with fire. 

He heard gunshots, people screaming either for help or to kill others who were still standing. Charles was trapped under rubble, holding the lifeless hand of his friend whose head was pierced through by a support beam. Water was beginning to fill the area, and he wasn’t quite waterproof yet. He held his head up as much as he could, trying to prevent it from getting in his hard drive. Despite not having a mouth, he remembered covering the area and hoping desperately that the person who found him would be a good guy. 

It was 2 days later, when the smoke had finally settled, that someone lifted the chunk of ceiling to find the two robots under it. 

That was when he was given his cozy jacket, to try and cheer him up as he passed the mangled hard drives of his friends. He knew that they’d locked those memories off to keep him from causing a fuss, but how did he just forget that? 

He didn’t realize he’d stopped breathing until a hand tapped his shoulder. He couldn’t help but flinch. 

“Are… you alright?”

Charles forced himself to start breathing again. Despite the thoughts that were running through his head, that Burt could surely read, he put on a forced smile. “I’ve been better? It was kinda intense. Don’t lock it up again though! I don’t want to forget…”

Burt nodded. “Go get a drink or something.” The cord was pulled out of his head, and Charles sighed in relief as he was just himself again. It felt like a chore to put his headphones back on and stand. 

He had a lot to think about. 

[fandom-necromancer]

Let’s try our best

This was prompted by an amazing anon! Let’s just say I’m in an angsty mood and I really like how this turned out!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warning: Discussions about death)

They had been caught in the middle of typical Monday afternoon traffic and were thankful to finally park the car in front of the house barred by holographic police tape. Gavin too had wished to be part of the people driving home after they had finished work, but of course, Detroit’s criminals didn’t think of his downtime when making their plans. The call had reached them about ten minutes prior to shift end and his pride demanded taking the overtime instead of letting others take over their case.

Nines exited the car first, waiting for the human in front of the tape. ‘Do you want me to wait for you, darling?’ Gavin sighed, waving him off. ‘Nah, you know everything already. Go take a look at the body, I’ll get the briefing done with and meet you inside.’ The android nodded with a smile and left his human with the responding officer at the door. It seemed to be a pretty straight-forward murder case: a man that mingled with the wrong people being killed by said people. The connections were quite obvious with E-mails on unsecured computers, text messages on the victim’s phone and evidence in forms of drugs and an unlicensed weapon. They had been called to assist only because one of the victim’s contacts could be the dealer narcotics had been looking for for years now. Maybe there would be some kind of hint to be found here that could lead them to the more than secretive suspect of their own case.

He walked into the living room and started casually scanning the place. All the evidence that lit up in his vision was already marked by the forensics and Nines hoped Gavin would come back soon with the other officer so they could get a look at the computers and the phone. That was when he walked around the table and all his systems came to a halt. Gavin? He blinked in confusion and stared at the man lying on the ground. That faint stubble from habitual laziness spotted his chin. There were the same dark rings from work and stress under his eyes and a near identical scar on the bridge of his nose. The man wore a grey hoodie and jeans, both drenched in caked blood from the stab wounds in his stomach. Nines couldn’t move. His face recognition software informed him the man’s name was Jake Blair and that he worked at a local electronics store. But somehow despite the facts lingering in his vision, he couldn’t stop seeing Gavin lying there, dead, body cold and bled out.

‘Hey, Nines! Found something?’ The hand that slapped his back made the android flinch and turn to a very much alive Gavin, who frowned at his red circling LED. ‘Hey, something wrong?’ Nines forced himself to relax and look at his human. ‘No, I’m… alright, it’s just…’ He turned back towards the dead body and immediately the incongruencies rained down again.

[Jake Blair. Male. 38 Years old.][Gavin Reed. Male. 37 Years old.][Cause of death: blood loss due to two stab wounds.][Current status: alive.]

‘Hey, Nines, you’re not alright’, Gavin spoke up. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘He…’ Nines swallowed. ‘He looks like you.’ Gavin blinked, taking in the body more thoroughly. ‘Shit, yeah, he kinda looks like me. And?’ ‘My systems have problems distinguishing’, the android answered. ‘I… I don’t think I can look at him.’ ‘Hey, that’s… That’s okay’, Gavin said. ‘I will take a look at him. You go with Charles and take care of the tech-stuff, yes? You’re far better at that anyways.’ The man smirked at him, but Nines didn’t even recognise the teasing as he followed the responding officer just to get away from the body. Gavin looked after him worried, then braced himself and crouched before the dead man. ‘Shit’, he cursed. Except for the fact he was out of blood and cold as stone, it really was like looking into a mirror.

-

‘Ah’, Gavin sighed, stretching as they finally made it home and he stood up from the table to throw his plate in the dishwasher. ‘You know this likely is the first time I feel good for doing overtime! I know it, this is just the lead we needed to get a hold this asshole!’ He shut the hatch of the dishwasher energetically and grinned at Nines. His smile fell instantly. ‘Hey, you okay there, buddy?’ ‘Huh?’ Nines looked up at him, then back down on his hands. ‘Yes. Yes, I’m okay. Err… It’s getting late, do you want to go to bed already? I think I need more time in stasis than usually. Have to find the error in my system that bugged me today at the crime-scene.’ Gavin shrugged and nodded. ‘Sure, why not? Just let me shower real quick, then I’ll join you.’

Nines followed him until he turned to the bathroom, pulling the android down for a quick kiss, before pushing him in the direction of the bedroom. ‘Don’t you dare falling asleep before I do.’ The android smiled faintly at him and walked towards the bed, slipping under the covers. He waited for Gavin to come back, listening for the human singing the wrong lyrics to the wrong melody in the shower. He didn’t dare to close his eyes fearing to see the dead body again, only for his scanner to return Gavin’s name back to him this time. Why did this affect him so much? ‘Alright, sorry for keeping you waiting!’ Gavin came waddling into the room, a towel wrapped loosely around his hips. Nines watched him closely as he put on new boxers and the old shirt that he only wore for sleep. He took in the skin, smoothly wrapping bones, muscle and fat in olive tones. It was so full of colour, reddened from where the shower had warmed it. So different to the lifeless grey. His body was marked by scars, moles and stretch marks. But there were no wounds, no blood. And when he turned around, his eyes were vibrant, and his mouth pulled into a smile. He had to forget how it would look like when he was dead, had to stop pre-constructing and comparing it to what he had seen today.

Gavin joined him on the other side of the bed and let his fingers rest against his LED. Nines pressed his eyes close at the softness of the gentle contact. ‘You need to stop worrying, Nines. I’m here. I’m alive.’ The android opened his eyes to look into these eyes again and he couldn’t hide how his brows gave away his despair. Instead, he reached for Gavin and pulled him close to himself, wrapping his arms around him and pressing his chest to his back until he could feel that strong heart beating. He hid his face in the back of his shirt and breathed in the scent of coffee and sweat and something so specifically Gavin, he couldn’t put it in words. The human laughed, but Nines could hear the worry in it too. ‘Nines, it’s okay, I’m here.’ He took one of the android’s hands and squeezed them, directing his fingers to his pulse point. ‘I’m here’, he whispered. ‘I will be for a long time.’ ‘How can you say that?’, Nines asked, trying to nuzzle closer even if that was impossible. He felt the even breath of his human as he pressed back into him. ‘You are looking out for me. And I haven’t yet made the wrong people my enemy.’ ‘But you can be killed so easily. I… I guess I’ve never thought about it. Not really. All it needs is a bullet, or a knife, or an illness. You could crash with your car, someone else could crash into you or you could eat the wrong thing. I never thought about the possibility that you could die, and I could live.’ ‘Nines…’, Gavin tried, but swallowed. As much as Nines hadn’t thought about his demise, Gavin hadn’t thought about it either. About Nines not aging and staying behind when he grew old. Hell, he didn’t want to think about it! ‘Nines, yes, that can happen.’ He turned around and took the android’s head in both of his hands. ‘It can happen, and I will eventually die. But I’m alive right now. And we will always have this moment, this present, this day. Hell, we can have weeks and months and years of our life. If you always look out for what could kill you, you forget to live in the process, okay?’ ‘That’s… That’s a very human thing to do: postpone what you don’t want to think about.’

Gavin chuckled. ‘Yeah, guess so. But you can see it has its advantages, has it not?’ ‘We have to face it eventually’, Nines stated, evading the question. ‘I know. But I say, we do what we have done so far.’ Gavin kissed Nines and looked deep into his eyes. ‘We will continue living to the best that we can, you will look out for me and I will look out for you. That way when something happens, we have nothing but the world to blame it on.’ He heard Nines sigh and felt his hot breath on his skin as he vented his systems. The android leaned his forehead against his. ‘I will try’, he said, sounding exhausted. ‘That’s all we can ever do’, Gavin commented gently. ‘And one thing I can tell you: You already did an amazing job so far.’

[wedgestratos]

Sailfish OS: One Day

Today’s gonna be a weird and long post, so let’s start slow and give you the choice.

We’ve had, for years, seen the constant back and forth between Google and Apple on their respective phone operating systems. Android, which has dominated the market on basically any device you can pick up here in the states, and iOS, which exclusively powers iPhones, iPods and iPads. Despite the two duking it out, Android does hold the highest market share. As of Q2 2018, Statista claims a whopping 82% market share for Android, and no other competitors really exist.

But, for years, I’ve been enamored by an OS that has been seemingly out of my reach, and has had a lot of drawbacks that prevented me from ever considering using it for more than an hour. An OS that’s been going strong for over 5 years, and might soon see a new breath of fresh air due to recent allegations to Huawei. So, after the break, let me tell you my tale of Sailfish OS.

Now one thing I want to briefly mention is the history of this, but don’t take it as gospel. I’m not an expert on this stuff, but what I’ve gathered is Sailfish OS is built on a foundation of MeeGo and Mer. MeeGo has prospered on its own to Tizen, an alternative OS used widely by Samsung on their watches and fridges (for some reason), while Mer was a fork of MeeGo driven by the community, and became the framework for ex-Nokia employees to start a new project, with the funding of Nokia through their Bridge program. Those ex-Nokia employees would found Jolla, and Sailfish OS would be their creation.

I first heard of Sailfish in 2013, as I was dipping my toes into the world of smartphones at that point. It looked incredible, with vivid, vibrant colors, a gesture-driven UI, a uniform design language, and a promise of privacy and openness that we definitely don’t see from companies today. And at the time, I was especially curious of their hardware.

Credit By Michael Coté - Flickr: Charles' Jolla phone, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31979039

The Jolla phone saw its first pre-orders in April of 2013, and was officially available for purchase by November. It had decent specs for the time. Snapdragon 400, a modest 540x960 resolution (keep in mind, the flagship Samsung Galaxy SIII had a mere 720p resolution), 1GB of RAM, a 2100mAh battery, and most interesting to me, the “Other Half” which powered the system’s Ambiences. You slap a new Other Half on it, and the color changed to match in the OS. Cool in concept.

The later Jolla tablet would be promoted with an Indiegogo campaign, but unfortunately, costs and availability of materials, and the development of Sailfish OS 2.0 led to the tablet ultimately being cancelled, with a handful of units out in the wild.

Since then, Jolla’s gotten back on stable footing. The OS is open for licensing with OEMs, and Jolla’s been able to get official support from places like Russia, and companies like... Sony.

I have the Xperia XA2, released in March 2018 for $300 in the US. I snatched it up on eBay for a mere $170, and I’ve enjoyed its clean design, near-stock OS, and the solid in-house Sony apps like the Gallery and Music apps worked wonders. But then I discovered Jolla was working on Sailfish X for the XA2.

As a way to support the OS, and a way to fund the continued development of an Android compatibility layer for those who need Android apps, Jolla has Sailfish X, a version of their OS that features predictive text input with the keyboard, software updates and customer support, and of course, the Alien Dalvik, which lets you run Android apps on the OS natively. This was important, since I knew I needed apps like Discord, Twitter, Google Maps, and I could see the available open-sourced apps of things like Keepass weren’t gonna cut it.

The process was a bit difficult, and I stayed up until 4am on Saturday, trying to get the phone backed up, flashed, and ready to go with what I needed. First, I had to unlock the bootloader, which Sony and Jolla made it pretty easy. Then I had to buy the OS for the meager $35 USD (which I had done before even being certain my phone would do it, don’t make my mistake), download their software package and just... do it. After an hour, I had the phone running Sailfish, and man, it was a delight from the beginning. Swiping, tapping, sliding, the OS felt smooth, it had this flow about it.

After I got the accounts logged in, I proceeded to grab a few apps... before realizing all too soon that I’d need Google Play services. This is where I’m probably gonna get a lot of flack. For all the effort I put in, I was about to install apps that were at least partially at fault for the slowness of my XA2 on Android, and defeating the point of installing Sailfish.

Let me be forward in saying I don’t care that much about privacy. Do I like Google being involved in every facet of my life? Absolutely not, but they are sadly a necessary evil. And it’s not like you, the reader, would be any different. Tumblr, after all, is owned by Verizon, who has a history of screwing customers in plenty of situations, including firefighters who need constant access to emergency services for contact. And too many things want or need Google Play for me to avoid it. Discord, Telegram, Authy, Youtube, I use all this stuff, and without GP, it gets unhappy. I could remedy some of those by using Amazon or just going open-source with F-Droid, but it won’t fix the issue. And even now, microG, an open-source implementation of Google Play services, isn’t perfect, and would likely cause more headaches than I could handle at 4am on a Saturday.

Fortunately, some good Samaritans on Jolla’s Together forums created a simple Bash script I could run by just SSHing into my phone... Wow, that was a sentence. A fitting one though. After that, and after some headaches with the Google Setup wizard (here’s a tip: use Vision settings to get to your Android settings, and disable permissions on “Android Setup” when you’ve gotten your account logged in), I was finally using my phone, and it runs quite well. Android apps don’t consistently work correctly. Often, I have to close apps like the settings or Keepass because the framework stops updating the frontend, or even fully stop and start Android support, but it works well for just about everything I’m using on it now!

I really like the UI and design, and since the Other Half concept isn’t there for the XA2, ambiences are just a menu away from changing the look and feel of the OS in this pleasing way.

The system flows thanks to its gesture-driven controls. Swiping up from the bezel will bring you your app tray, swiping from the top bezel gives you quick settings. When you’re on the home screen, swiping left or right gives you a sort of agenda view where notifications, weather, and updates from your Twitter, Facebook, XMPP, VK and other accounts stack up. When you’re inside an app, swiping from the left or right bezel should bring you back home. Of all the interface controls on this device, that one is the most inconsistent one, a pain point given the nature of Android’s design language encourages these slide-out menus that you can’t consistently swipe open due to that gesture. The only setting I’ve found on that is to change the left-side bezel swipe to open the agenda instead of going home. I’d personally prefer hot zones on the bezels, so if I wanted to go home, swipe in from the lower half of the screen, but if I want the Android menus, slide from the top half.

Other interesting design cues come from the glowing parts of the UI, where extended menu options usually hide, or places you can slide out to are available.

Sliding down if the top is glowing usually opens this pulley menu, where each option can be selected by just pulling a bit and letting go. It’s an odd one, and due to the inconsistencies of apps and options, the pulley menu isn’t as instantly intuitive as I would hope. If there’s a glowing dot on a page though, you can simply slide to return to a menu from previously, or access another menu if the dot’s on the right side. Again, this is a bit inconsistent, as the unofficial Twitter app, Pingviini, showcases. You can actually just swipe left and right at will to access your notifications, conversations, search and trendings, and timeline. That bottom menu you’re seeing there is hidden so often, it’s basically pointless to have it there. This does make the whole system feel more cohesive, Pingviini looks like it belongs on this phone, but it does hurt usability.

Thus far, I’m still testing and learning about this OS. I had to google screenshotting, which is simply holding the volume rocker together. Doesn’t feel as reliable as the Android alternative of Volume Down and Power / Home, but I’ll take it. I don’t plan on gaming with this. Games are just not what I buy a phone for. It’s nice to have it there, but I’d prefer to just play my 3DS if I’m out and about.

I can’t wait to do more with Sailfish. It feels really nice to use, and I’m honestly draining my phone’s battery just from the amusement of swiping and sliding menus around and admiring the design of this. The last OS I really enjoyed using was Blackberry 10, and this feels like a sort of spiritual successor, with the included agenda feed and the persistent cards for apps you’re using.