closed | from the beginning to the beginning

[hypoxic]

Who: Dr. Fitz and Monika
Where: Fifth floor, Room 2
When: July 15th
Rating: PG13
Summary: Monika's "body" went discarded a few months ago, and it's about time someone reached out to recover it.
The Story:

[These last few weeks, the doctor has been wondering if it would be possible to get a moment to himself. It seemed like every time he tried to go somewhere or do something, some stranger would pop out claiming to be a friend or acquaintance. They all seemed determined to talk with him about or over food, though, which gives him the excuse he's chosen for today. Apparently, if he claims that he's going in search for snacks, he's given free access to leave his caretakers behind. It's just what he needs to get preparations started. Though he's been shackled to a desk for weeks, he's had the opportunity to plan his moves carefully.

Monika is the quickest way to get what he wants. She's self-aware enough to use her access and breach normal protocols, but has the maturity level of a child. A simple action will pay off exponentially. It's this he's hoping for as he enters an abandoned living space and plucks a discarded device from an empty mattress. He sends a video to Monika as proof of concept, holding her hard drive up between two fingers.]

I believe this is yours?

Comments

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[ Monika's eyes shoot open.

She hadn't been sleeping, really, since she couldn't sleep for more than minutes at a time--hooray, video game mechanics! But the network was quiet, she was tired of reading books on coding, and no more angry poetry was coming to her, so she went with her last resort for passing the time, staring at her eyelids. If she pretended hard enough, it was almost like she was sleeping like a normal person!

But there was a sensation of movement. Had the day finally come?

She stumbles out of bed, tripping over herself to get to the computer she'd set up for communicating. What she sees makes her heart leap. Any annoyance she'd been harboring over the Doctor taking his precious time instantly vanishes. He's here!

Happy tears spill out of her eyes and she puts her hands over her mouth. You'd think he'd just proposed to her or something... ]

You...didn't forget about me.

[hypoxic]

Of course I didn't. How could I forget about someone as important as you?

[The words are needlessly flowery, purple prose to appeal to her. The tears are unexpected, but not unwelcome. She's ingratiated to him. ]

Have you thought about where you want to go next?

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You could drag me to hell, Doctor, and I'd go with you. [ The words come almost before he's finished. She scrubs the tears away and looks deathly serious. ] Take me wherever you want me to go. Anything's better than that room.

[ Then her face softens and she frowns. ] Were those awful people you talked about keeping you away?

[ Maybe she'd had the slightest of doubts about him, since she'd come to believe everyone was out to disappoint her. She was glad he'd proven her wrong. ]

[hypoxic]

Then you'll stay with me for a time. A temporary arrangement until we find you more permanent housing.

[Hell is an overstatement. He'll simply drag her to victory. Glory. He stuffs her into his jacket pocket.]

And they've certainly been trying to keep me occupied. But I've been finding a few cracks in their plans. I believe things will change quite soon.

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[ Her eyes light up. Permanent. It's getting harder and harder to stay seated, but she keeps herself glued to her seat somehow. ] Yes! Okay!

[ Ohh, she can imagine it now. They'll spend so much time together. She'll help him reach his goals. She'll ease his weary mind when he needs it. And when she has a body? She can do so much more.

She sighs happily, smiling dreamily at him. It's obvious he cares. Why else would he put her so close to his heart? ]

Is there anything I can do to help speed things along?

[hypoxic]

[He watches her excitement impassively, processing her body language. It can't possibly be this easy.]

For now, help me find openings. Mentions of SHIELD on the network. Those are the conversations that will fill in the remaining blanks. I want to know what they're planning and how they intend to go about enacting their schemes.

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[ That makes her blink. SHIELD? She sits up straighter, frowning. The name sounds familiar, but it's definitely something she hasn't been paying nearly enough attention to. ]

Mmm, I guess I could do that.

[ Monika sighs quietly, glancing away. She can't help some disappointment. She was hoping he'd say something like getting to know him better! That'd help her help him a lot more. Imagine all she could do if she knew his favorite color or his favorite kind of music, or oh! His favorite kind of books! He definitely has to be a reader!

...But no. Boring stuff. She sighs again. ]

Do you want me to look for past mentions or focus on newer ones?

[hypoxic]

Both. Either. [It doesn't matter that she looks bored. This will teach her discipline.]

SHIELD is currently engaged in an invasion of my home world. They're a terrorist organization that seeks to uproot stability and undermine peace and order. If you learn their next moves, you can keep millions safe.

Have you ever thought about being a hero, Monika?

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[ Monika's eyes briefly glaze over as he talks about the things going on in his world. She takes in the pertinent information, at least, since she's very used to pulling the important stuff out of things she may not be paying full attention to. His question, however, makes her raise her head and come back to reality. Her brow furrows as she ponders it. ]

Um. Well. I liked to think I was kind of one back home. But nothing like a superhero or anything.

[ She laughs a little in disbelief. ] Are you trying to say doing this for you would be heroic or something? Ahaha, aren't spies are normally the enemies in stories?

[hypoxic]

Depends which side they're on. [Stories. Hmph. This is real life.]

But yes, I would consider it very heroic if you helped me save my world from destruction. [It's insulting that she needs it phrased like this. He's tempted to try rewriting her code outright. If only that wouldn't risk robbing her of all that extra access.]

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[ Her face scrunches up as she spends a while considering all that. ]

Well, okay! As long as it makes you happy!

[ Screw the rest of the people. They could all die and it'd be no big thing! Picturing a world where it's just the two of them together has that dreamy smile back on her face. Devastating apocalypses could be sooo romantic! ]

We're not going to spend too long on this spying thing, are we? Like, this'll last a few days and then we'll move on to more important things! Right?

[ She already has new poetry brewing in her head. And gosh, she has to plan their first date! There's so much to do already! ]

[hypoxic]

It'll last until the job is done. If you find it unpleasant, consider it incentive to work harder and get it over with sooner.

[But he's absently curious now:]

What sorts of things would you consider to be more important?

[He'd like to know how much to sneer later.]

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[ She perks back up. Finally! They can talk about more fun things! Besides, she'd rather not think about the idea of having to do a lot of work to get what she wants. God, if only she could delete these stupid people. ]

I thought we could take time to get to know each other! Not that I have to talk about anything. You don't have to know anything about me. I'd prefer knowing everything about you. Maybe we could start right now? Ahaha, it's not like you need me to start doing all the SHIELD stuff right this second!

[ Monika beams. Important things! ]

[hypoxic]

You can start by knowing that I don't tolerate laziness.

[She's wasting time. And after everything's he's done for her!]

If you aren't willing to perform a simple network search, then perhaps a reboot is in order to clear the rubbish from your cache.

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[ That slaps the smile clear off her face. ] R-Reboot?

[ As the implications of that come to her, she clutches the edge of her table. Everything feels incredibly unstable all of a sudden. It'd been months since she'd been thrown into the void that'd forever haunt her, and she was determined never to experience it again. He wouldn't do that to her, would he?

Monika raises her gaze to him, swallowing hard. She puts on a shaky smile, assuming this is just some really dark joke of his. ]

I don't even have a cache, though. So it wouldn't do anything.

[hypoxic]

If it's not a cache issue, then I'll just assume you're ready to go off and do what you've been told to do.

[Because now she looks nervous. There's something about rebooting that frightens her. He can't imagine what it might be, but it's clearly leverage.]

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[ She lets out a laugh, but it's a little too high and quivery to sound normal. ] Yeah! I wouldn't want to keep you waiting!

[ She looks back down, biting her lip, clearly considering something. It's almost too hard to ask the question she wants to, but not having the confirmation would eat at her endlessly. ]

You wouldn't do that to me, though. Right? Rebooting my device. Or...shutting me off.

[hypoxic]

[And there it is. She's afraid. She's accidentally given him power over a force that terrifies her.]

You seem worried. What happens when this is turned off?

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I--I don't know, honestly. No one's ever shut it off.

[ Indeed, she is very clearly afraid. If her vision wasn't so clouded with the haze of love, she'd probably be trying to conceal it better. People seeing her weak isn't something she likes, no matter who it is.

Monika's silent for a while before she speaks again. ]

I'm imagining it'd be how it was when I was back home. When my, um...program was closed. [ He'd probably think less of her if she'd said "game," so she decided to go with that. Much more vague. ] It's terrible. I don't really like to think about it.

[hypoxic]

[He taps the device in his pocket thoughtfully, keeping deliberately quiet then. It leaves her room to wonder what he's planning. Whatever she worries about will be more terrifying than the truth. She can fret herself into submission.]

Noted.

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[ The effect of his tapping is instantaneous, to the point the vase she'd placed his rose in falls to the floor with an apparent shattering of glass, along with half the items on her table. Her head jerks around frantically as each vibration hits her from every direction. Why would he do this?! She needs to reason things out. There had to be a reason for it!

See, it was just an unconscious action. Or he was just trying to comfort her directly, since that was kind of like her physical body! Yeah! He didn't give her a promise not to hurt her, but why would he? Hahaha, she's just being crazy! And maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't have happened if she'd just done what he'd wanted. Shame on her for upsetting him!

Monika takes a few breaths and uncovers her head, something she didn't even realize she'd done. It's like it never happened, though. With a soft crackle of static and shower of pixels, the fallen items are back in place, just as they were. She's smiling sweetly as she carefully presses down any errant strands of hair and then lightly smooths her shirt.

Everything's just fine. ]

Ahaha, sorry you had to see that~ If you give me about five minutes, I could have a scan of all the past network stuff ready for you. Then we could go over everything together!

[ Everything was just. Fine. ]

[hypoxic]

[Right on time. It's nice to see her fall into line on her own accord.]

Excellent. Message me when you're ready. I want to know who's already working with them. It'll give us potential targets for later.

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[ Her happy exterior cracks the tiniest bit. She can sense he's probably trying to stop talking to her and it's making panic edge back in. Even if she's close to his heart, she doesn't want him to leave her alone!

With a few small giggles to cover up her fear, she glances away from him for a moment to get the search started immediately so it can run in the background. That'll give her time to stall him. ]

Should I add in some more search criteria? Are there any other related terms you think might help? That way we don't have to keep doing superfluous searches!