Chapter Text
“Alright, Pekoyama,” says a voice, cool and clinical, “you can bring yourself back online.”
The voice pauses. “Cognition only, please.”
Her eyes focus. The change is almost imperceptible, but he notices it, he always notices every twitch of her face. Her eyelids widen just slightly, the spark of life comes back into her eyes. His stomach is still rolling at the sight of her, limbs bent in a position that, while it does not look painful, is not something a human would settle into, head cocked slightly. She looks like she’s hanging by the limpest of marionette strings, ready to fall back into a heap on the floor. And she’s naked, of course she is, sick fucks. Not that it’s the first time he’s seen her naked, not even close, but those times it was— well it was intimate, like it fucking should be, not like she’s being studied. The contours of her body look all wrong under this light.
“Do you know where you are?” the scientist next to him asks.
“I am in a dream.”
Her voice is so much smoother than he’s use to, so much cooler. No trace of the cute Western accent he’s grown so fond of, and for some reason that of all things is what catches him off guard. Not the way her eyes stare right through him, or the way her hands haven’t so much as twitched the entire time she’s been sitting here.
“T-the accent, it’s not real-?” he stutters out like an idiot.
“It’s a host, Kuzuryuu,” snaps the scientist. “Nothing about it is real.”
“Would the accent make you more comfortable, sir?”
Peko’s face doesn’t move a single muscle beyond the requisite ones to form the words she’s said. A piece of hair falls in her face. Fuyuhiko moves in to brush it behind her ear, a gesture he’s done hundreds of times, though in the past it’s been under the hot desert sun, when a layer of dust coats her skin and the thousands of perfect, tiny muscles under her skin work together to form a smile. She feels dull and wrong and it makes him shiver to even think that, because it’s still her, isn’t it? She’s the same girl, the one he’s fallen in love with so many times. Somewhere in there, if they’d stop fucking with her with their stupid fucking tablets, she’s still there.
“No thank you, Pekoyama. Stay in your default settings unless I say otherwise.”
“Yes, sir.”
He could strangle that guy. Stupid fucking scientist with his stupid fucking tablet punching buttons and turning Peko into this… weird empty thing. He doesn’t understand what they have. That it goes beyond programming and parks, it’s love, it’s real love. He’s found her over and over, in so many different roles, in so many corners of the park, and every time he’s fallen in love with her. It’s why he keeps coming back. No matter what life he has outside, on the edges of his mind he always feels a pull to her, her rare smile, her warmth that few get close enough to feel. He gets two weeks at a time with her and every time he leaves, he knows she gets wiped, other people have their way with her (he’d kill them all if he could), but when he comes back it’s like nothing’s changed. She’s here, waiting to fall in love with him again. And she does every single time.
“Can I please just talk to her?!” Fuyuhiko shouts at the scientist.
He considers it briefly, then nods. “Actually, that might be a good idea. You can see.” He looks up at Peko, sweet, sweet Peko, who didn’t deserve any of this. “Revert to previous build.” He then looks to Kuzuryuu and slides his chair back a bit. “I’ll give you two a moment.”
Peko looks into his eyes, life in hers, fucking finally. “Fuyuhiko? Are you alright?”
She sounds concerned. The faintest twinges of the accent color her words. He reaches out for her, takes her arms in his, and holds her. He can feel the blood pumping in her veins and the warmth of her skin and even under these cold, harsh lights, she looks like herself again and she is so real. She’s the realest thing he’s ever seen, and she’s beautiful and alive. There’s no other explanation.
He smiles at her, a goofy, crooked little half-grin. “Yeah, Pek, I’m good. I was worried about you.” He squeezes her forearm. The smile falters. “I- I’m so sorry. I tried to get you out of here. I thought— I got as far as the elevator, but there were so many—“
“I know,” she says sadly. “I know you tried. I wish I had been more help.”
“You can’t help what those sick fuckers did to you.” He wishes he could beat the living shit out of the words, cease all motor functions, the words themselves, just keep punching and shooting until they get banished straight out of the language. He knew hosts had a voice controlled shutdown, of course he did, but seeing his beloved Peko freeze in place like that when he knew, he knew, she was as desperate for freedom as he was, it made his skin crawl. If he could reach in her body, find the part that still has to listen to these fuckers, and rip it out himself, he would.
He kisses her lightly.
She cuts him off with a delicate hand on his cheek. “Oh, Fuyuhiko…” She smiles sadly at him. “You musn’t worry about me like that. I know we have a future out there, somewhere, in the great beyond. And if we fight for it, we’ll get there somewhere. Maybe it’s just not ready for us yet.”
He nods. He knows her lines by heart by now, he’s heard them so many times, but they never fail to feel real. This is one of his favorites. He remembers the first time he heard it, the two of them standing on the edge of a huge bluff with nothing but untouched wilderness as far as the eye could see. They’d been out there seeking her home, a small settlement she hadn’t been to since she was a child, only to find it razed to the ground. She’d been so upset, he remembered, she held her jaw tightly like she always did when she was putting on a show for being strong, but he knew her too well. He cut through it like butter.
“Analysis.” The scientist’s voice cuts through their tender moment like a knife through flesh. “Why did you say that, Pekoyama?”
He can feel the shifts in her body when she goes into analysis mode, the way her body feels just a slight bit tenser. “The guest is anxious. His quest failed. It is my job to ensure he finds the strength to continue.”
“And how many guests have you used that specific speech on?”
“Two hundred and seventy four.”
She sounds like a god damn calculator. He socks the scientist right in the jaw. “Fuck you!” he roars, with all the protective testosterone of a man whose lover has disappeared from her own body. He lands one more hit before men in spacesuits hold him back, but it’s Peko that calms him down. His Peko, not that creepy robotic sham they have her putting on in front of him. She puts her hands, calloused from years of living in the wild (the attention to detail here is fucking amazing, it really is), on the sides of his face as tender can be and kisses him lightly.
“It’s alright, Fuyuhiko,” she breathes, soft so only he can hear. “You don’t need to fight for me like this. I’m a tough girl. I can take care of myself. Our time will come. I know it will. But it isn’t today.”
He stares into her eyes, beautiful and ruby red, and he trusts her sure as breathing. He nods and stops struggling against the moon men. She takes a step back, then looks to the scientist, then back to Fuyuhiko. “I should be going now, I think.”
The scientist nods at her. “I’ll see you again soon,” she says.
“You fucking better believe you will,” he says. “I’ll come and get you, I don’t care what I have to do.”
“That won’t be necessary,” responds the scientist. “We’re not taking her back down to cold storage just yet. She’s just taking a trip to diagnostics while you,” he eyes Fuyuhiko, “have a talk with our people.”
“Can I see her when that’s done?” he asks.
The scientist sighs. “That depends how you answer.”
They have him put up in a fancy, ultramodern hotel room that overlooks the park. The window takes up the entire wall with a view that looks like a painting, all deep oranges and greens, the vast blue sky with the puffiest clouds you’ve ever seen. It feels wrong to look at wearing a modern suit, surrounded by sleek white furniture. His belt feels light without a pistol. He sighs and sits on the bed, plush and smelling lightly of lavender, buries his face in his hands, and groans loudly. This is all so completely and utterly fucked. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This was his vacation, his time alone to truly be himself, be free, and now he was being held fucking hostage in the fucking corporate office.
Visions of scientists bounce around in his head, of being interrogated like a fucking criminal- well. He was a criminal, he supposes, he tried to steal a host. But it’s a fucking crime to lock her up like this! She’s not like the others, she’s special, she’s alive, and they’ve got her running around this stupid fucking theme park like a party trick. It’s obscene.
(He can’t get the words out of his head, the angry shouting scientist spitting, “You think you’re the first one to fall in love with one of these things?” at him. These things.)
His despair is interrupted, a few long moments later, by a knock at the door. He stands, confused, and presses a button to slide the door open. Behind the door, honest to god, is Peko. He hardly recognizes her at first, her long silver hair straight and sleek, wearing a modern black dress that hugs her figure and a pair of glossy black heels, but it’s her. He beaks out in an ear to ear grin and pulls her into the room, shutting the door behind her.
“You’re here!” he cries out, still grinning broadly.
She smiles back at him, warm and radiant like the sun. She holds the hand he used to bring her inside tightly. Her hands are so strong. “Yes.”
He blushes. “You look, uh, you look good.” He stares at the floor.
She bites her lip a bit and looks away, the way she does when she’s embarrassed. “So do you.”
He looks at her funny. “Your accent…”
“You prefer it?”
It’s back so quick he isn’t sure he imagined her dropping it. “I- I’ve always loved it,” he says. “It’s cute.”
She smiles. “So… this is your world.”
He laughs short. “Yeah, I, uh, I guess.” He scratches the back of his head. “You like it?”
“I’m just happy to be with you.” She walks to the window and looks out at it, taking in the vastness of the park from her newfound perch so high above it. “…They’ll want more from us, I’m sure.” She looks over her shoulder to him. “We can spend the night together, though.”
He walks over and squeezes her hand. “I’ll take it. Any time I get with you… Fuck, Peko. I love you so much. I’d do anything for you. You know that, right? Like… I’d carve a hole through a mountain if it meant I could see you on the other side.”
“I know.” She sounds sad. He stares at her face, concern written all over it. “I feel the same. The things that keep us apart… They feel so vast sometimes. I spent so long doing what others told me, fulfilling my purpose. You make me feel like it’s worth it to chase my freedom. I’m just afraid of where that may lead us.”
He frowns. “That thing you just said… About fulfilling your purpose, chasing freedom with me… You’ve said that before, you know. A couple times.”
She frowns back. “Have I?”
He sighs. “Yeah, it’s one of your bits, I guess, one of the speeches they give you. Can we- can we just talk? No scripts, just us? We’re not in the park right now, Pek, it’s ok. You can be yourself.”
The accent drops again. “Shutting off scripted dialogue access. Improvisation only.”
“What the fuck?”
She frowns. “It appears I’ve been left in diagnostic mode. Interesting.” The accent returns.
“Well- what does that mean?” he asks, bewildered.
“It means you have much greater access to my mind than you normally would. You can do whatever you like to me- turn my emotions on and off, wipe my memories, revert me to a previous save, ask me why I said something, have me tell you just about anything you could think to ask… It’s used to ensure I’m functioning normally.” She bites her lip again and looks away from him, staring out at the picturesque desert. “I’m at your mercy, Fuyuhiko. Please be careful with me.”
His heart breaks for her. He knows why she has to say that, he’s seen how the vile fucking guests treat hosts, he’s sure of what happens to her in that park when he’s not there no matter how hard he tries not to think about it. He wishes he could be there all the time, to keep her safe and make sure the only people that touch her are ones that deserve to. That’s exactly what he was trying to accomplish, breaking her out like this, he just needed to get her out the door and she’d be his. Maybe they could make a real life together, somewhere safe, somewhere he wouldn’t have to worry about her dying or being reset while he was gone, or some lowlife taking a turn with her because he doesn’t know she’s spoken for.
“Of course, Peko,” is all he can say. He wraps his arm around her waist, rubs a comforting thumb in small circles. The synthetic fabric of her dress feels so strange against the familiar curves of her ribs.
“There’s a bomb inside me,” she says after a pause. “It’s embedded in my spinal cord, the C6 vertebrae.” She reaches behind her shoulder and lightly touches a spot just below the base of her neck. “It’s set to detonate if I cross a certain threshold in the facility. A failsafe against IP theft.”
“Peko, you’re not just-“
“Just listen!” she interrupts. “I’ve died so, so many times, but there are things I can’t come back from. That’s why I got so scared in the elevator, froze up even before the voice command. I didn’t know about it then, they only just told me about it after you left, but it’s a part of my programming. Protecting myself from a catastrophic death. I- I can’t go with you, Fuyuhiko.”
“Maybe we can get it out,” he offers.
“Best case scenario, I’d be paralyzed from the neck down. Worst, you set it off by accident and we both die. This is my world, Fuyuhiko. I can’t leave.”
He squeezes her hand and looks her in the eye. “Then I guess I can’t either.”
They crawl into bed eventually, long after the sun has set and there’s nothing left to look at. They find black silk pajamas in both their sizes in the closet and slip under the plush white sheets together. He holds her close to him, resting his head in the crook of her neck while she grasps his fingers loosely. Hours later, though, long after he can hear her breath slow and see her drift off, he’s still awake.
“A-analysis.” His voice shakes. He knows he shouldn’t be doing this, but the urge tugs at his mind like an itch.
Her eyes open immediately.
“How many times have you died?”
“One thousand, six hundred and twenty two.”
“How?”
“Seventy two percent - shooting. Sixteen percent - stabbing. Eight percent - burning. Two percent - mutilation. Two percent - miscellaneous.”
He wants to throw up.
“Peko… do you love me?”
“Yes.”
It sounds so impersonal, but she can’t lie in this mode, can she? She can’t do anything but spit out facts at him. His stomach rolls over again. “You can… you can go back to sleep now, Peko.”
In less than a second, she does.