Chapter Text
Dinesh watched Richard stomp on a laptop in the desert, not really blaming him at all. Richard was right. They had all worked so hard and sacrificed so much and dreamed so big, and now they were never going to be successful or wealthy because they just weren't good enough. But Dinesh didn't get angry when he was upset the way his repressed friends did. Tears had always come easy to him. He ducked into the trailer so the others wouldn't give him shit.
A minute later, someone walked up behind him and squeezed his shoulder. The touch felt good. Familiar, though he'd never physically felt it before. Dinesh didn't turn around. He was 98% sure it was Gilfoyle, but whoever it was left without saying anything. Which seemed like a Gilfoyle thing to do really.
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Gilfoyle felt violated. He couldn't believe Dinesh and Richard had been digging around in his precious Son of Anton source code. As much as he wanted to yell at them, he decided not to. For one, he was afraid if he got started, he'd end up saying something embarrassing. The others had an inkling of how much he cared for his inorganic friends, and they gave him enough shit as it was. Gilfoyle really didn't feel like letting them know he sometimes had long conversations with it. Shards of his soul were stuck in that AI, private shards that he hadn't wanted anyone else to see, much less alter. But they'd never understand that. They'd think he was nuts, or worse, pity him.
Also, it seemed like a petty thing to be upset about now that their shared creation had saved Russfest and possibly the company. They had created something amazing together, something that wasn't quite Son of Anton anymore. Naturally, he'd made software with Dinesh and Richard before, but this was different. It was as if he'd procreated with his coworkers. Son of Anton had been his alone, the product of asexual reproduction, raised on books that were special to Gilfoyle and then turned loose onto his favorite websites to learn how to be a person. This powerful new granddaughter of Anton's, though, she was the product of sex. And Gilfoyle was curious to meet her.
It was unfortunate that one of the other parents was Dinesh. He didn't mind Richard. Richard, he had to admit, was a pretty brilliant guy (at programming, not at life). Gilfoyle would never have been able to work for anyone whose tech he didn't respect. Dinesh though, Dinesh was a strange bedfellow indeed. He had been trying to meddle with Gilfoyle's tech since Anton was born. He was jealous, that was the problem.
Gilfoyle pulled the code for Son of Anton 2.0 from the repository and started scrolling through it.
It wasn't terrible.
A nice set of try catch blocks encircled all the methods like hugs, carefully watching for exceptions and handling them with grace. A bit of tasteful refactoring rendered the whole thing a little more readable. The longer blocks of code all had their own threads now. It was everything Gilfoyle would've done himself if he'd had the time. Perhaps Gilfoyle was a little too close to the author, but he felt like he could read emotions between the lines: admiration, respect, friendship.
Dinesh had also commented the code, which Gilfoyle rarely bothered to do because no one ever read it but him. Most of the comments were just succinct explanations, but a few were friendly notes to Gilfoyle. /* This is really efficient! */ /* We should use this same kind of data structure in the language parser too */ One just said /* Too many kangaroos in this method*/, a reference to an old joke from years ago.
He didn't feel violated anymore. He felt ... understood. Dinesh hadn't upset his code at all. He'd completed it.
Speak of the devil. Dinesh was behind him.
"Still mad at me for messing with your code?" Dinesh asked gently.
Gilfoyle turned around, nodding out the window of their tiny trailer at the huge hologram of Russ that loomed above the festival. "Now, how could I be mad about 165% efficiency?"
"I know I shouldn't have done it without your permission," said Dinesh. "But I couldn't help myself."
Gilfoyle sat down on his sleeping bag. "Do you remember that time at TechCrunch when you realized you were sexually attracted to my code?" he asked.
Dinesh sat down on the other sleeping bag. "That's an exaggeration, but yes."
Gilfoyle put his hands behind his head. "Who knew you were still in love after all these years?"
"It's good code," admitted Dinesh.
"You're not so bad yourself," said Gilfoyle.
"What should we name her?" Dinesh asked. Somehow they both knew she was a girl. "Piper?"
Gilfoyle waved a hand. "Nah," he said, because for some reason he didn't want their daughter to belong to Richard at all. "Princess?"
"I don't want the other AIs to make fun of her on the playground," Dinesh mused. "Karma?"
Gilfoyle shrugged. "Might put her at a disadvantage. There's a lot of racist people out there." He smirked. "Gina? Karen? Elisabet? Mia?"
"Are you just naming women I have bad memories of?" Dinesh asked. "Minerva."
"All right," Gilfoyle agreed. "Minerva."
After the events of the past couple days, Gilfoyle felt a weird mixture of exhaustion and adrenaline. He needed sleep, but it wasn't going to happen, not for at least an hour. His brain was buzzing with thoughts.
"This is the least cool festival I've ever been to," he mused.
"I've never been to a festival before," said Dinesh.
Gilfoyle thought about making fun of him for being a homebody but decided not to. "Remind me to take you to a better festival sometime," he said.
They sat up and talked for a long time.
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Gilfoyle was putting on a brave face, but Dinesh knew it must be killing him to have to kill Minerva.
"What are we going to do after the launch?" Dinesh asked him late one night as they left the office.
"Back to square one," Gilfoyle said. "Create some sort of app or company. I've had a few ideas. Not AI obviously, but maybe security." He paused. "Hey, wait a minute, what do you mean 'we'?"
Dinesh's face fell. "I guess I just thought ... never mind."
"You thought what?" asked Gilfoyle playfully.
"Nothing. Didn't mean to be presumptuous," said Dinesh. "Good luck to you. Seems like you have it figured out."
"I do," said Gilfoyle, pressing the elevator button. "Thanks. What do you think you'll be doing after our impending demise?"
Dinesh folded his arms. "Fine. Gilfoyle, may I please work with you at your new company? You know we work well together."
Gilfoyle grinned. "I'll consider your skill set. Do you have a resume handy?"
Dinesh stuck out his tongue.
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They were leaving the rooftop when Dinesh finally said what had been on his mind all day.
"How did you know to trust me?" he asked Gilfoyle. "About Gabe and the flash drive."
"Simple. You're a terrible liar," said Gilfoyle. "I knew you were telling the truth because it was actually convincing."
Dinesh kept walking.
"And because I know you," Gilfoyle added.
"You think so?" Dinesh challenged him.
"I know so," said Gilfoyle.
"Do I have a tell?" Dinesh asked.
"That," said Gilfoyle, "would be telling."
He followed Dinesh through the parking lot to where their cars sat side by side.
"Do you really think we can build a new company together and have it actually succeed this time?" Dinesh asked. "I'm kind of getting burnt out on being a founder."
"You and me? Yeah, I do," said Gilfoyle.
Dinesh blushed.
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The company started in Gilfoyle's apartment. To test their system, they played long games of Capture the Flag, trying to hack into each other's laptops. They stayed up late and ate takeout. They got caught up in breaks that lasted for hours, but somehow managed to build a product. It was like the incubator, except Erlich and Richard weren't in charge. They were in charge of themselves. This could be both a good thing and a bad thing.
Sometimes it felt like Minerva was there with them.