Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The poster almost completely blocked out a large window right on the front of the building, but it didn't matter.  From the dust on the cracked panes, and the darkness of the empty room within, no one would have a problem with a Sweet Cap'n Cakes concert poster blocking the view except Queen herself.

But that was the part that worried Cap'n most about the entire plan.  "Sweet, we are either gonna go down in history as genius rebels, or complete morons.  If we even live to go down in history after this..."

"Oh come on, it's perfect!"  Sweet had in his arms dozens of those rolled-up posters, unfurling and passing each one to K_K as they slathered glue on the windows, well out of the smaller robots' reach.  The posters served a secondary purpose of keeping any prying eyes from viewing what would soon be going on inside, and any precious black light from getting out -- a trick that proved particularly useful for concerts given K_K's insistence on lasers.  "The people need their spirits lifted in these dark times," Sweet went on, "and ain't nothing more uplifting than the set we've been working on!"

"Yeah, Cap'n!  Queen's been such a jerk, with banning music and everything, we all could use a good dance party!"

"So neither of you see the problem with throwin' a dance party, to protest banning music?"

"It's the only way TO protest the music ban," Sweet assured Cap'n, glancing back at him smugly with their speaker, which just made the boombox huff.  "And besides, we've taken the proper precautions.  This whole district's been abandoned for years.  No pictures on the posters, so Queen's facial recognition can't track us.  And it specifically says we're gonna be playing 'Noise Music.'"

"But we ain't playin' noise music, are we Sweet?"

"Oh we are, 'Noise Music' is what I named our newest song!"  Sweet beamed proudly with his eye; it'd taken him weeks to come up with that one.  "It's a classic bait-and-switch, Queen'll never catch on in a million years!"

While the other two worked Cap'n served as their lookout, making sure no one saw them defacing the old metal building, least of all any of Queen's troops.  Her army had been growing by the day; she'd always had a preference for the Werewires, and had upped their numbers significantly since the Knight's departure, the skies sparking with wires ready to swoop in on unlucky Plugboys at a moment's notice.  And while Queen traditionally hired Swatchlings as her butlers given their natural cleanliness and attention to detail, so many joined her flock so quickly that it'd become nearly impossible to spot one outside her mansion, or as part of her entourage in the city.  Even the Poppups and viruses had flourished as Queen's attention moved from battling them onto other projects, bringing a lot of them onto her side even in an unofficial capacity, and in the older, rundown sections of Cyber City they could be a robotic rebel's worst nightmare.  Keeping his eyes peeled, Cap'n patrolled the block, until finally the last of the posters were in place, and he could breathe a sigh of relief as he plotted their escape from that malware-infested district.

"So you think a lot of people will see it?" K_K asked, trying in vain to wipe excess glue off their gloves using a rag.  The attempt failed, leaving them with a sticky rag semi-permanently attached to their fingers.

"No, but that's the point.  We can't risk the wrong people seeing until it's time."  Sweet nearly tripped over some discarded plastic, and K_K automatically reached out to stabilize them, accidentally transferring the sticky glue-covered rag to Sweet's back.  Thankfully, they didn't notice, too distracted with trying to regain their balance, and so K_K just innocently followed behind, resolving to retrieve it in secret later, the next time Sweet tripped.  "But they'll know where to go, once we get the word out!  You still got that discount rate at the copy shop right Cap?"

"Oh yeah, they love me there.  Probably even worried when I stopped comin' in every week."  Producing a smaller, flier-sized version of the poster, this time with an address added, he smirked back at Sweet.  "It's on the other side of the city though, you guys good while I run out?"

"Yeah, think we're in the clear now."  The trio finally caught a glimpse of a distant Ambyu-Lance chasing off the Virovirokuns, meaning they'd officially left the bad side of town behind.  Waving Cap'n off, Sweet sighed, glancing curiously up at K_K.  "So...now what?"

It'd been a long time since either of them had ventured all the way into the heart of Cyber City, at least since the music ban had been announced, and K_K couldn't help but look around, their CD drive spinning with excitement as they noticed they'd stopped at a street lined with convenience stores and fast food restaurants.  "I'm hungry."

"Me too.  Let's find a diner or something!"  Sweet would salivate if he could from the smells wafting towards them, his eye going right for the nearest burger joint.  Home-cooked meals were nice, but sometimes the speaker just needed something made not with love, but with a full pound of grease instead.

Seeing his choice, though, K_K hummed apprehensively.  "I think I want a cupcake.  Are there any bakeries around here?"

"Yeah, that sounds good too!"  Sadly, Sweet didn't see any bakeries, nor did they know of any in the area; that particular street seemed to cater more to savory than sweet.  Cap'n would've been the one to ask had he not just left, being the expert on Cyber City.  "We can find one though.  It'll be our little adventure!"

K_K smiled wider.  "Yeah!"  He so often stuck to Cap'n it was rare for him to be alone with Sweet instead, so the experience was an adventure in itself.  Subtly snatching back his dried rag, he turned Sweet to look down another street.  "Let's try over here.  I think I smell something sugary!"

"Lead the way, K_K!"  The two of them would most likely get lost in the maze of city streets searching for the source of the smell, Sweet knew.  But, they had time to find their way back out -- the "noise music" concert was a week away, after all.  And while they still had a lot to prepare, a little adventure was never unwelcome.

—

There was nothing Cap'n wanted more than to watch three hundred copies of the concert flier spill out of the machine, he told himself repeatedly.  It was better than looking out the window behind him.

An "arrest" was going on right outside the copy shop, of all places.  Two days before Queen had made a televised announcement to all of Cyber World, declaring another set of ridiculous new "laws" she'd calculated would bring the Darkners living there even further under her strict control.

"No One Can Wear A Blue Hoodie After 3Pm"  It was noon, but Cap'n had one of Sweet's purple shirts in his backpack just in case.

"Bow Ties May Only Be Sold At The Color Cafe"  Cap'n could already see trash cans overflowing with them in the alley across the street, next to one of those big shot high-end boutiques.  He was tempted to pocket a few on the way out, figuring they might fetch a nice price on the black market.

"Street Cheese Is Now Illegal"  That one was the kicker for the poor sap outside.  Right next door was a sandwich shop, where the Plugboy had apparently bought a cheese sandwich, heading out to the street to eat.  And, inevitably, as he did so a small piece of cheese had fallen from the sandwich, onto the pavement below.

The wire had come down faster than anyone anticipated, least of all Cap'n, who could only turn away as the victim writhed in agony, his limbs elongating and his short pink fur standing on end with dazzling electricity.  The transformation completed, the new Werewire, now part of Queen's hivemind, simply floated in midair above the remains of his fallen sandwich, guarding the illicit cheese and daring any nearby Maice to get involved.

That was the thing about Queen's new laws, the effects always reached further and wider than it would seem at first.  Cheese laying out on the street was a staple for Cyber City's Maus infestation, they obsessively searched the back alleys for any they could find.  Banning it only brought them out of the shadows and into the more-populated areas of the city and its outlying fields, delighting the local Tasque population but terrifying everyone else, particularly the Swatchlings -- there was more than one reason they'd started sticking exclusively to Queen's Maus-free mansion.  In fact, if Queen were more stable Cap'n would wonder if perhaps that wasn't the ultimate goal of banning cheese, to get the last of the Swatchlings under her wing, so to speak, but it was just as likely to simply be a happy accident.

Cyber World wasn't a monolith, it was a complicated web of a Dark World, each piece affecting the others.  An abundance of Maice and viruses in public was one thing, but the music ban was another entirely.  Music equipment robots like Cap'n and his bandmates had become increasingly rare, their very existence so tied to music that it may as well have been a ban on the entire population, and he definitely didn't enjoy the stares it got him as he made his way through the city, as if everyone was simply waiting for him to screw up and take a wire to the face next.  Cap'n was careful, he kept his headphones off, his disc drive and cassette slot both empty, his antenna folded down and hidden away under his cap, lest it catch a stray radio signal.  There was nothing anyone could accuse Cap'n of music-wise, even if they recognized his face from the ripped-up posters and music magazine articles still littering back alleys and trash piles, remnants of happier days yet to be scrubbed away from Queen's pristine, music-free city.  

Cap'n was careful, he HAD to be, or he would end up just like the brand-new Werewire outside.  

And even worse were the occasional run-ins with those who, while not directly employed by Queen, believed in her message, and went around citing it as if it were doctrine from the Lightners themselves as they turned against their fellow Darkners.  Seeking out and harassing what few robots remained, goading them into throwing a punch or playing a song, a single mistake which would then serve as an excuse to call down the Werewires and take the rest of them out for good.  So far, Cap'n had only gotten tangled up with a few of those assholes, always refusing to take the bait, but he knew what to listen and look for, who to avoid – it was Sweet and K_K he worried about, the two not being nearly as savvy.  As far as he knew, though, they'd never met any of those Queen fanatics, and he'd prefer to keep it that way.

Like with the cheese, effects of the music ban had reached further than just the robot population.  Cap'n hadn't gone to his usual copy shop, paying full price for the fliers instead, figuring Sweet and K_K didn't need to know.  He could afford it.  The owner of the other shop couldn't.  The old purple Addison liked to play Sweet Cap'n Cakes' music over the speakers, seeing as how one of the band members was a regular, and the morning the ban was announced he got snatched up.  Not wired, thankfully, but kept in one of Queen's cages for three days, forced to watch four-hour-long lore analyses of her favorite horror game featuring children's mascot characters the entire time, a gruesome punishment if ever there was one.  

There was no way Cap'n could ever show his face there again, he knew.  Little white lies and full-price copies from that moment on.

"That'll be $123.99!"  Ouch.  Cap'n just hoped Sweet and K_K didn't spend too much on lunch, or they might be short that week.  Sliding the cash over the counter, he stuffed the copied fliers into his bag and turned to leave, but just as he grasped the door handle a sudden electric blast made him jump back inside to safety, his soul pounding in his chest as he scanned the area for the source of the danger.

Peeking back through the window, he sucked in a breath.  One of the Maice eyeing that discarded cheese couldn't resist the temptation any longer, getting blasted by the Werewire as it made a break for it.  Working up the nerve to try and sneak past, Cap'n glanced over at the smoking plastic shell, whose pained squeaks echoed in his soul.  More than anything, the boombox wanted to at least flip the poor thing back onto its rubber ball base so it had a chance to escape, but the Werewire's ears were trained onto him, his long fingers still sizzling with energy, and so Cap'n only muttered a silent apology and hurried down the street away from the scene.

He was such a fucking coward, like Sweet always said.  But, in a city and a Dark World quickly devolving into chaos at the hands of Queen, her Knight, and the Dark Fountain looming overhead, at least he was still alive, and free, without a wire plugged into him.  If his cowardice kept it that way, Cap'n was proud to be the biggest wimp imaginable.

—

"Oh my god."  

The prices on the menu board overhead were nothing short of outrageous, with cupcakes nearly $30 apiece, but it wasn't that which had captured Sweet's disgusted attention.

"Oh my god ."

"Sir, is something wrong?"

Sweet slammed his hands onto the counter, his eye speaker pulsing with rage.  "Hell yeah something's wrong!"  The bakery was small, only a few tables scattered around for guests' convenience, but after nearly an hour of searching it was the only place the pair could find; it seemed that particular section of Cyber City just didn't care for baked goods.  The place was empty save for Sweet, K_K, and the teenage Addison at the counter, struggling to keep their customer service smile in the face of an agitated speaker bot, whose very words could tear them apart if Sweet dared to turn up his volume just a notch.  They followed as he pointed across the room toward a wall-mounted television, which happened to be tuned to Cyber World Music Channel, at least in name only, as since the music ban's announcement the programming had switched entirely to celebrity news and hastily slapped-together reality dating shows.

"Um...Sir, is there a problem with the TV?"

Sweet scoffed.  Of course this cashier didn't get it, they weren't a music robot like him.  They didn't have a stake in anything that was going on.  "Change the channel.  I don't wanna eat my cupcake under the rotting corpse of my favorite network!"

"Sweet."  Gently, K_K laid a hand onto one of the speaker's boxy shoulders, but he brushed it off, puffing himself up and even hopping onto the counter for effect.

"It's bad enough that Queen has to decide what we listen to, but to have us watch as the things we love the most get stripped down and hung up in front of us like it's on a wire is NOT gonna fly!  We can't just accept this, all of us need to rise up and send her a message that no, we WON'T accept her tyranny in any form, no matter how small!"  

The cashier just stared, completely bewildered.  "Sir, this is a bakery."

Sighing, Sweet gave in to K_K's calming touch, his tone softening in defeat.  "Fine.  We'll take two cupcakes, one caramel cream and the other lemon-lime zest."  As he paid for the food and brought it to their table K_K changed the television channel, finding a monster truck rally instead.  "Man, it's a good thing Cap'n gets those cheap copies, if he didn't we'd really be in trouble this week!"

"We're always in trouble," K_K said sadly.  They were rebels, and constantly had to be on their guard as things changed around them.  It seemed like doing nearly anything carried a risk, and though K_K hated to admit it Sweet's attitude, his fiery energy and passionate speeches against Queen's harsh policies, really didn't help matters.  At times it took nearly everything they had to calm him before he got in over his head, but thankfully expensive caramel cream cupcakes did the job just as well.  "These are really good, huh?"

"Yeah, almost worth the price!"  As Sweet stuffed another bite of rich icing into their speaker the bell above the bakery door rang again, signaling the arrival of another customer, an older gruff-looking Plugboy in a bowler hat, who before he even made it to the counter zeroed in on Sweet, in a way that made K_K's circuits instantly stand on end.

They were always in trouble.

"Hey."  The guy roughly tapped Sweet on the shoulder, demanding the speaker's attention.  "You know music's illegal in Cyber World?"

"Boy do I."

"So what are you doin' wearing those headphones?"  K_K stiffened in their chair, watching the Plugboy closely.  They could hear nothing but acid in his tone.  One wrong move and they could grab Sweet and be gone, dashing down the street, with their long legs keeping them far ahead of the Werewires these types could easily call.  

But, Sweet merely side-eyed the Plugboy, more annoyed than worried.  "Psh, they're not even plugged in, see?"  He wasn't an idiot, and never dared take his cassette player with him into the city anymore, fishing the loose jack out of his pocket to prove it.  "They're just 'cause I feel naked without 'em!"  

"But you COULD listen to music with those things.  Queen doesn't like that."

"So what do you want me to do?  Take 'em off?"  A subtle growl made its way into Sweet's voice.  "My headphones aren't hurtin' anyone, and if Queen has a problem with them she can just kiss my shiny metal-"

Instantly, K_K gripped Sweet by the arm, silencing him.  "He'll take them off."

Now the Plugboy's attention was on K_K as well.  "Not good enough, buddy.  You're music robots, you WILL listen to music with 'em.  It's what you delinquents do!  No regard for Queen's rules at all!"

"Delinquents...!!"  Jumping out of his chair to get into this Plugboy's face, Sweet glared, his soul blazing as musical magic flooded his circuits.  "I'll have you know I got straight As-"

"I got Fs," K_K chimed in.

"-and never got into trouble once!"

"My teachers kicked me out because I don't have an attention span."

Sweet narrowed his speaker at the Plugboy.  "But Buddy, you're askin' for it big time!!"

But before he could be provoked any further a sudden wall of bar-shaped bullets cut between the two of them, K_K using their own magic to keep Sweet's rebel fury contained, at least for the time being.  The only problem was, a music robot Darkner's magic depended on sound, the bullets being hardened music itself straight from their soul.  Taking music away rendered them entirely powerless, the link was so strong, and so as the forcefield materialized a few discordant notes automatically played from K_K's speakers, making the Plugboy's sockets widen in alarm.  "Music!"

"No, it wasn't music," K_K assured them, "just my magic."

"It's music!  The CD player played music!!"  Right away the bakery door burst open, a pair of Werewires floating through at their informant's command.  "You two are under arrest for defying Queen!"

"Whoops, time to go!"  Scooping Sweet up under one arm before he could react, K_K bolted, ducking underneath one of the Werewires as they reached out to grab them and squeezing past the counter, safely behind which the cashier whimpered as they watched everything take place.  The robots reached the door in seconds, with K_K dashing for a nearby alley, just hoping the Werewires wouldn't follow.

They did.  But, weaving and ducking around buildings and under bridges like Cap'n had showed them, K_K eventually lost them, ducking into another trash-filled alley to hide behind a dumpster and cool their circuits, dropping Sweet back onto the ground where he collapsed onto his hands and knees, panting as if he'd done all the running himself.

"He tricked us," Sweet gasped, their eye to the sky for any more wires, "He freaking wanted us to play music!! You saw it, right K_K?!"

"Yeah."  Catching their breath quickly, they stretched out and cracked their spine, ready to run again if needed.  "...I didn't even get to finish my cupcake."

Sweet sighed.  "Me neither.  He's probably finishin' 'em for us, what a jerk!"

"I'm still hungry.  Maybe we can get some cheese sandwiches instead?"

Peering over the dumpster lid, K_K pointed out that the street they'd ended up on had a sandwich shop, but Sweet shook his head.  "Nah, cheese is illegal now, remember?"  It wasn't, technically, but Sweet knew the risk of accidentally dropping any onto the street was too high to take the chance.  "Let's just head home.  We can make sandwiches there!"

"Okay."  K_K looked around  They'd been so focused on escaping the Werewires that they'd forgotten to track any landmarks, and had never seen that particular street before.  "Um...how do we get back to the shop?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

—

Several hours later the junk shop door finally opened, and Cap'n glanced up from the TV.  "Yo, 'bout time you got back!  Have a good time in the city?"

"Hardly," Sweet replied.  It had taken a few tries before an Addison finally gave them directions back to the city limits, for a nominal fee of course, and K_K passed Cap'n the receipt, to his confusion.  "...Cap."

"What."

"We made a deal, no more Cyber World Music Channel when I'm around."

"You weren't around!!"  He frowned, determined.  "Listen, we're almost to the end of Shadows of Love, just lemme see who gets to be on the season finale next week and I'll shut it off, alright?"

Grunting in agreement, Sweet followed K_K to the kitchen, where they eagerly started on a pair of sandwiches, plus one more for Cap'n, who accepted as he watched the Shadowman bachelor give his final pair of tube socks to the boombox's favorite contestant, another identical Shadowman with a saxophone strapped to his back.  "Knew those two were made for each other!  Their chemistry's off the charts!"

"I'm sure."  Rolling his eye, Sweet plopped down onto the couch with him, snatching the remote.  Flipping through the other channels, he stopped on a news report about a Maus that'd gotten caught up in an illegal street cheese incident earlier that day, and uncomfortably swallowed the bite he'd taken out of his sandwich.  "We really gotta do somethin' about Cyber World, and fast."

"Yeah, but what?"  Gulping as he recognized the Maus through their bandaged-up plastic, Cap'n looked between his bandmates anxiously.  "We're just three rebels, way underground.  Ain't nothin' we can do about Queen on our own!"

"Then we gotta make sure this concert happens!"  The fliers Cap'n had printed earlier lay out on a nearby workbench, and Sweet swiped one off the top of the stack, looking it over approvingly.  "If we give people a reminder of what we're fighting for, they might wanna join our musical rebellion, and we won't be so underground!"

"Maybe we can all have a bake sale?"

"Yeah K_K, a big one!  Everyone can chip in to raise funds!"

"Yo," Cap'n interrupted, "let's just focus on the show right now!  Worry about the funding later."

Deflated, Sweet's shoulders sunk.  "Speakin' of, Cap, you are not gonna believe what we had to pay for cupcakes today."

"Don't tell me."

"It was $30."

"I said don't tell me!"  Glaring up at K_K, Cap'n sighed.  "Well, that's a problem, 'cause even 'discounted' copies ain't cheap..."

Chapter Text

"Damn it Cap, if you'd just told us about the copy shop guy we wouldn't have spent so much on lunch!"

"Oh so it's all on me now, not you two and your $30 cupcakes and avocado toast?!"

"Wh-?  I don't eat avocado toast..."

K_K looked up from slicing an avocado for Sweet, as the toast sprang out of the toaster.

"...Not every day!  Just once a week!"

Cap'n just pinched the bridge of his sunglasses, frustrated.  The argument had been going all morning, circling back around between the copy shop, the cupcakes, and the bills piling up.  More accurately, Cap'n had been arguing about the first two items, and Sweet the latter, having fixated on them for weeks. "Don't even get why bills are such a big deal anyway!  Didn't your uncle get wired?  We don't gotta pay him rent anymore."

"Cap, he paid all the other bills for us with the rent money.  Heat, taxes, electric..."  The blacklights momentarily flickered overhead, but thankfully didn't go out, to Sweet's relief – nearly every time it'd happened over the past week he'd nearly had a soul attack, begging them to stay on, the power company to give them just a little more time to pay up.  "Now those are all on us, and that's not even getting into budgeting for other stuff like food!  We gotta take care of these fast, unless you enjoy goin' hungry and playin' in the dark?"

"Like a slumber party," K_K suggested, passing Sweet his breakfast and checking on the bagels in the oven.

"Huh, you know K_K, I've never had a slumber party!"  Smiling up at them through an eyeful of toast crumbs and smeared avocado, he laughed.  "If the lights go out we totally should have one!  Not that the lights WILL go out, if we work hard and scrounge up enough..."

Feeling Sweet's gaze laser-focused onto his chassis, Cap'n threw up his hands.  "Whatever!  We'll make enough cash, you'll see!"

"S'not that I doubt it, just..."  Shaking their head, Sweet groaned, mentally counting up just how many CD bagels the trio would have to sell to make ends meet that month.  And knowing Cap'n's stubborn laziness, and K_K's harmless but unfortunately persistent lack of focus, unless they got another decent scrap commission soon they might have to cut back on the avocado toast after all.

"You just get started on the bagels.  K_K an' I'll catch up once we're done out at the venue."

—

"You think Sweet'll be okay with us taking this long to clean up?"

"Relax," Cap'n assured K_K, leaning against a wall and doing anything BUT cleaning up the big, dark room.  "Sweet knows how to sell bagels without us backin' him up all the time.  He's just bein' a tightass this morning." 

K_K looked around, at the trash still littering the area.  They'd been there for two hours, but hadn't even started yet, Cap'n procrastinating and K_K distracted.  

Mostly, the two of them had spent the time taking in old memories.  Cap'n hadn't picked just any random building for their upcoming 'noise music' concert, after all -- tasked with scouting an out-of-the-way venue without a lot of eyes on it, least of all Queen's, with enough open space for a crowd, there was only one place that came to mind.  The old abandoned warehouse looked just as old and abandoned as it had during Cap'n's and K_K's time in the gang, maybe even more so, with no one having touched the place since they'd all gotten picked up by the Werewires and reprogrammed.  

One of only two members remaining along with K_K, Cap'n looked around the room he'd swept so many times in his youth, the very broom he'd used discarded on the floor nearby.  Apparently the space had once been a sort of lobby, with the main warehouse area further back, but it was big enough on its own, and much easier to get in and out, with only one door in and one more in the far corner leading deeper into the building.  A reception desk covered in dust and faded neon graffiti ran along the back wall, repurposed as a sort of battery acid bar at one point, littered with empty cans and cardboard boxes, making Cap'n morbidly curious as to what might be rotting inside.

He uncomfortably tugged on the purple bandana around his neck, a souvenir that had long since taken on a new life as a simple accessory but sometimes strangled him with the memory of what it used to represent.  Loosening it, he peered up at K_K.  "So...ya think old Skrollz left anything behind when he got formatted?"

K_K thought for a moment.  "His couch!"  The thing still sat in the middle of the room across from the desk, intact save for the back cushion that'd apparently been slashed and then haphazardly duct-taped over at some point in the past. 

"...You know, I always wanted to do this."  Smirking to himself, Cap'n backed up a few steps and took a running leap, bouncing a couple of times onto the couch cushions as a plume of dust burst into the air around him, before finally coming to rest, sinking into the sagging upholstery.  Eventually K_K joined him, giggling triumphantly.  "Feels good, don't it?"

"Yeah!"  K_K never understood why Skrollz never let anyone sit on the couch with him, or even lean against one of the armrests.  Everyone else in the gang had been forced to stand, or dance, or sit on the floor, and at night everyone piled onto a bunch of lumpy mattresses in the side room to sleep, save for their leader, even guarding his precious couch in his sleep as it became his bed.

As a new member who had yet to earn their mattress, though, K_K had always been on the floor each night.  It wasn't comfortable, but eventually, they found that sleeping while sitting up against one of the walls wasn't so bad.  When he'd joined up Cap'n also had problems getting to sleep on the cold steel floor, tossing and turning as K_K watched.  But, after a few nights they'd smiled down at Cap'n as he once again tried in vain to get comfortable at their side, and patted their lap, inviting him to lay down his head.  If nothing else it was better than the hard ground, and though he hesitated at first Cap'n had accepted, finally able to sleep through the night, and every other night after.

As if struck by the same memory, Cap'n slowly leaned down, laying his head onto K_K's lap as they relaxed on Skrollz' couch together.  Sure, those first few nights had been awkward -- two robots who barely knew each other, didn't even have anything in common save for both being at the bottom rung, literally sleeping on top of each other -- but Cap'n quickly got used to it.  The habit served him well later, as he and K_K left the gang behind in favor of a life on the streets.  Cold steel was cold steel, whether it was the hideout floor or a dark, trash-filled alley, but K_K's warm lap had always been there for him.

"Comfy?"

"Yeah."  He sighed.  "Ya know we gotta move this thing so Sweet can set up our gear here, right?"

Smiling, K_K gently patted Cap'n's head, pushing his cap out of the way and his handle down and letting him snuggle.  "We can do that later."

The couch would be easy enough to shove into the side room, along with all the trash, clearing the place out for the concert.  K_K already scanned the room for good spots to set up their laser displays, but a closet in the corner, its door ajar, caught their eye.  A few more cardboard boxes lay untouched inside, in much better shape than the ones behind the desk, and it was all but irresistible for the two robots to search through them once K_K pointed them out.

"Yo no way!"  The first box had been mostly empty, just useless junk Cap'n momentarily considered hauling back to the shop as good scrap.  The second and third had been nothing but foam packing peanuts, the fourth stale foam-esque circus peanut candies that K_K happily snacked on, but in the fifth shone a particular type of metal, glowing iridescent under the blacklights.  Pulling it out to examine more closely, Cap'n ran his gloved fingertips over the smooth metal case, and chrome letters embossed into it: "Keygen."

He'd never seen one of the devices in person, but recognized it instantly.  "Skrollz had a fuckin' Keygen right here all along?!"

"What's that?"

He laughed deviously.  "It's our big break."

K_K tilted their head, confused.

"I mean, it ain't gonna break apart on us, it's somethin' real special.  They're basically skeleton keys, can unlock any door or crack any software in Cyber World.  Hacker's best friend!"  Cap'n neglected to mention that Keygens were also super illegal in Cyber World, for good reason.  Even before Queen had started announcing her ridiculous new laws, simply possessing one was grounds for capture and reprogramming on the spot.  

"We're not hackers, though?"

"Nah.  But we track one down, we can sell this thing for more cash than we'd know what to do with!"  Enough to finance the rebels for a while, much less pay the electric bill that Sweet fretted so much over!  "Come on, K_K, you and me, pullin' one last job for the gang.  You in?"

K_K stared at him, processing, their CD drive whirring loudly in their head.  They remembered the dubious jobs they and Cap'n had been sent on before, and even without Skrollz ordering them around what Cap'n was proposing felt no different.  "It'll get us in trouble, won't it?"

"No more than playin' a concert will.  And besides," Cap'n started, gripping his bandmate's hand tight, "you don't gotta do it just for the money, alright?  You can do it for Sweet instead."

"...Okay.  I'll do it for Sweet."  Cap'n smiled, proud, glad he wasn't the only one.

With that settled, K_K made their way back to the couch, lifting up the cushion they'd been sitting on mere minutes before.  They reached deep into a hole in the fabric, digging around until finally they found the item they sought, and carefully pulled out a small black notebook, its pages bent and soda-stained, fragile and old.

Examining K_K's treasure, Cap'n's jaw only dropped further, and he gingerly turned each page lest they crumble to dust at his touch.  "Phat Tasque, the Maus Mafia, The Hacker, World Three, Love Machine, MCP, WOPR, Megabyte, Tom & Crow, Giffany, 079, Edgar..."  The last few entries had been crossed out, with notes such as "Toxic codependency" and "Forgot our anniversary" and "Cheating bastard" written in the margins, making Cap'n raise a pair of eyebrows.  "This is Skrollz' address book?!   K_K, how the hell did you know where he hid this thing?"

"Skrollz trusted me with a lot of stuff."  They looked away, a barely-perceptible sadness in their pixelated eyes, which Cap'n thankfully didn't notice.  "Maybe too much."

"Either way, I think we can put this baby to good use..."  Flipping back to The Hacker's page, Cap'n was presented with an impressive list of addresses and phone numbers, even spilling onto an extra piece of paper stapled in.  Most were crossed out, but Cap'n pulled out his cell phone and dialed one of the ones that weren't, only to get loud beeping and a message that it'd since been disconnected.  It took a few more attempts before he finally found an active number.  "Yo, Hacker, long time no see!  ...Whadda ya mean where did I get this number, it's your fuckin' number.  Yeah Skrollz is outta commission, but ain't no Queen gonna take us down!  Now listen, Chief, we got somethin' you might be interested in..."

—

Sweet sighed deeply.  "Where the hell are those two..."

The lone speaker had been set up for hours on a streetcorner next to the junk shop, standing behind a large cardboard box full of CD bagels, without any sign of his bandmates.  The situation might have been acceptable if sales had been better, but Sweet had only managed a handful of customers all day.  He hated to admit it, but he simply wasn't that great a salesman -- so long as Cap'n wasn't allowed to set prices his sales skills could pull in crowds with ease, and even K_K could win people over with his smile alone.  But Sweet had neither the skill nor the smile, just a bunch of freshly-burned bagels and a stack of concert fliers to hand out, and he actually scored more on the latter, people simply taking the free fliers even without a bagel to go with them.  

Sure, they would usually then crumple them up and toss them into the trash can at the end of the street, but they were taking them, and reading them, and that alone gave Sweet hope.  Maybe, just maybe, they'd remember the address, and the date, and show up to watch the Sweet Cap'n Cakes play their hearts out, maybe even be so moved by the groove they'd join the growing resistance against Queen!

Or, maybe they'd just throw it all in the trash, and keep ignoring all the injustices around them, even outside the city.  The increasing Werewire patrols, the starving Maice, the long lines at the clinics and constant shortages of antivirus, that one Plugboy in a bowler hat from the bakery the day before...

Wait, what was that guy doing in the Cyber Field?  "Shit," Sweet muttered, stiffening at the Plugboy's approach – he'd already been spotted, so there was no way he could cut his losses and run back to the shop.  Surely, this was just a coincidence, right?  This guy probably harassed hundreds of speakers, he couldn't possibly remember Sweet, or go out of his way to track him down!

"You!  From the bakery!"  SHIT.  But, he didn't call his Werewires on Sweet just yet, not until they made another mistake.  "Whadda ya got going on here?"

"Uh..."  Begging his speakers not to thump along with the soul in his chest, Sweet held up a CD bagel, his hand shaking. "W-What it looks like, CD b-bagels!  We burned the whole b-batch this morning."  Even despite his best efforts, as he spoke his bass warbled and popped.

The Plugboy glared at the bagel, and Sweet, suspiciously, his sockets furrowing.  "You say you burned them this morning?"

"Yeah.  In the oven."  But, it wasn't the bagel that necessarily caught the Plugboy's eye.  The stack of concert flyers sat out on the box next to Sweet, and he handed one to him, not sure what else to do.  "We've also got a, uh, concert comin' up.  All noise music, nothing else!  So, nothing Queen will object to at all, she'll probably even be there in fact!"  Sweet rambled, smiling anxiously with his eye in desperate hopes of drawing attention away from the sweat pouring down his case, as the Plugboy studied the flier carefully.  At first Sweet wasn't sure if he believed him or not, but eventually he glanced up at the speaker, any hostility suddenly purged from his sockets.

"Huh.  I really had you guys all wrong, didn't I?  It must be so hard for musical guys like you to stay legit nowadays."  With a slight nod, the Plugboy dismissed his Werewire lackeys, who Sweet hadn't even noticed dangling in the air behind him – a very, very close call indeed.

Relieved, he straightened up behind his box, doing his best to keep up the act.  He didn't have K_K to back him up again if this jerk caught on.  "Oh, of course!  All music being banned is a bummer!"

"But, you switched anyway, realized that noise music's the way to go!"  As if, Sweet grumbled to himself, but fought to keep that sunny smile in his gaze. 

"Yeah, it's been tough, but we'll pull through!"  The resistance, that is.

"That's the spirit, buddy!  Us country boys, we gotta stick together!"  Not likely.  "In fact, here."  The Plugboy handed Sweet a business card, with some information scribbled onto the back, a time and date and an address.  "We hold our local pro-Queen meetings every Wednesday, you should stop by!  It's…admittedly more just a weekly get-together with snacks, but everyone's there!"  

Not a chance in Cyber-Hell!  "I'll consider it, thanks!"

"Oh, and to make up for eating your fancy cupcakes yesterday..."  The Plugboy bought five CD bagels, the best sale Sweet had had all day!  Finally, he left them alone, heading back whichever direction he'd come, and they breathed a sigh of relief, wishing they had a tongue they could stick out after him.  And they especially wished that he hadn't left that card with them, the one with the pro-Queen meeting info.  Sweet wanted nothing more than to throw it away, laughing, possibly even tear it to pieces for good measure, but they sighed, pocketing the card along with the bagel proceeds.  The best rebels kept extra intel on the enemy, after all, so maybe it could prove useful.

—

Just as planned, Cap'n and K_K approached the edge of the metal cliff, overlooking the roller coaster and the glittering Cyber City skyline beyond.  K_K had to stop themself from gasping in awe at the view -- they were there on business, Cap'n had said, promising that they'd return to watch the roller coaster once that business was concluded.

Once they were done with the stocky arrow cursor-shaped man who stood waiting for them.  The Hacker didn't greet them right away, staring off into the distance as if he didn't even notice them, but after a few seconds he stole a well-hidden glance behind his cheap shades, humming in disappointment.  "I remember you clowns," he finally drawled, scowling, "but now you ain't got no circus to run home to, huh?"

"Hey, I ain't the one with the big red nose here, Chief!"  Smirking, Cap'n mimed honking his own nonexistent nose, and The Hacker growled, mortified.  

"So you punks actually got yer grimy little gloves on a real Keygen."  He shook his head, his pointer automatically clicking with it.  "You really expect me to believe that shit?  Even Skrollz himself couldn't track one down after I begg-I mean, erm, consulted him for years, and now that I got a client askin' me for a way into Queen's basement you two just happen to dig one up?  Couldn't sound phonier if I made it up myself."

Despite being instructed to stay back and let Cap'n do all the talking, to just "intimidate" The Hacker by towering overhead, K_K cocked their head curiously, thinking out loud.  "What's in Queen's basement?"

"I dunno.  Probably just wants in to steal some of her old socks, that pervert.  I don't ask those kinds of questions an' neither should you!"

"Yo!"  Snapping his fingers a couple of times, Cap'n called the others' attention back onto himself.  "So ya interested or not?  There's a lot more demand out there than just you and your pervy client.  Let's get to talkin' cash already."

"Cash?!"  The Hacker doubled over, guffawing.  "Kiddo, who even uses cash anymore!  Everyone's switched to crypto!  You want Queen trackin' it?"

"I ain't afraid of no Queen!  We deal in cash, Chief, and if you don't got any then we might as well keep on walkin'."

True to his word, Cap'n spun on his heel, turning to walk back down into the metallic fields, but The Hacker panicked, stopping him, just as Cap'n had hoped.  "Wait!  I-I don't got any cash, but I know someone who does."

"Sounds like we might still be in business, then."

"Hardly.  He'll wanna see this Keygen of yours in action too, to know this is legit before we talk money.  Follow me."

The Hacker led them back down the cliff to a second lookout nearby, the stomping grounds of another of the Cyber Field's famous faces.  Nubert smiled up at his visitors as they approached.

"Nubert!  My man!"

"No way, THE Nubert?!"  Cap'n had to catch himself before he squealed like a schoolbot, having seen every single one of the little red pointer's films, watched every single television special and livestream, read every one of his autobiographies...if the circumstances had been any different, if he didn't need to play it cool, Cap'n absolutely would've been kissing Nubert's...lack of feet.

Completely ignoring Cap'n, Nubert glanced up at K_K, extending his neck to see them more clearly.  "Ah, I know that smile.  A fan!  You can have Nubert's autograph later, now, let's see this so-called Keygen."

K_K complied, stuffing a hand into their pocket.  It took some time for them to locate the device, first pulling out a yo-yo, three different toy cars, an orange, a handful of butterfly screws, a live Maus (which skittered away to freedom), a prepaid data bus pass, one of Cap'n's old caps ("I wondered where that went!"), Cap'n's old toothbrush ("Wondered where that went too..."), an egg, a half-eaten bag of Temmie Flakes, three pairs of shoes, and a tube of glitter glue, before finally they produced the iridescent metal box, carefully passing it down to their bandmate.

Nubert and The Hacker eyed it suspiciously, the latter even shouting, "Fake!"

"How do you know, you ain't never seen one before!"

The Hacker opened his mouth to argue but Nubert shushed him, motioning behind the group to the metal platform, its entire surface covered in large letter-marked keys, connected to a nearby wall screen and forcefield.

"You see that box over there?"  Nubert motioned again to the forcefield, extending his neck, until finally Cap'n located the red chest blocked off behind it, along one side of a forked path.  "That's Nubert's special box.  There's plenty of cash in it.  Only way to get to it is to put in the right code."  His placid smile curled into a surprisingly cocky smirk.  "But Nubert won't tell you the code, so if you want the money you'll have to use your Keygen."

"Piece of cake!"  Steeling himself, Cap'n pressed a button on the device.  The box glowed, humming a soft melody, its iridescent colors rippling along its surface and, somehow, even spreading up Cap'n's arms, his whole body enveloped in light and color, until finally it was done.  The machine whirred, spitting out a disk, which Cap'n held up, grinning.  "Believe me now?"

"Still doesn't prove anything until the password's cracked," The Hacker grunted, and an offended Cap'n shoved the disk into a slot in the wall, next to the screen.  The characters in the code flashed, one by one stopping on the correct answer until they all locked into place, and like magic the forcefield faded away.

Dragging his jaw across the floor behind him, The Hacker obediently retrieved Nubert's cash from his special chest, promising to pay him back in Blipcoin later.  "Okay, deal's a deal!  How much you askin' for it?"

"Depends.  How much is your little perv payin'?"  Cap'n nearly giggled, he was so excited.  In their many past dark web dealings the Hacker had always been such a sucker, so easy to swindle, his enthusiasm never failing to get the better of him.  "'Cause I'll take half!"

"F-FIFTY PERCENT?!"  The Hacker almost fell over at the suggestion.  "Outta the question, I'm riskin' my neck just buying this thing!  Aren't you too?!"

"Pssh, we don't care, we're musicians!  Queen's on our asses no matter what!  Ain't you ever heard of the Sweet Cap'n Cakes?"  

"No.  Sounds like the name of some crazy cartoon."

"Well..Well it's not!"  Stammering, Cap'n pulled a spare concert flier out of his pocket and showed it off, eventually handing it to him to pass around to his other "connections."  He wasn't sure someone like The Hacker would bother making an appearance at one of their shows, too public, but Cyber World's underground was vast, and there was more than one way to pass information around underneath Queen's radar.  "Oh well, if you ain't interested.  Who was next on our list, K_K?  Some 'Tenna' guy?"

The Hacker sputtered, shoving the wads of bills into Cap'n's hands.  "Fine, just take it all!  Long as I don't gotta see your punk faces around here again!"  He retrieved his new Keygen, quickly stuffing it into his ill-fitting suit jacket as he scanned the area, making sure the coast was clear then, his voice lowering, he whispered to Cap'n, with rare concern.  "You two keep the wires outta your sockets, you hear?"

"Trust me, we don't plan on bein' Queenie's little puppet any more'n you do, Chief."  Cap'n counted up the money, smiling, reaching up to high-five K_K for a job well done.

A job done , was all K_K cared about.  As Cap'n led the way back to the shop they barely glanced over at the roller coaster speeding past, but as they got further away from the literal scene of the crime they finally breathed a deep sigh of relief.  "You good back there, K_K?"

"Yeah."  His eyes glued to his feet, K_K lingered back a bit, making Cap'n adjust his pace to avoid leaving the CD player behind.  "You're sure we won't get in trouble for selling that box to him?"

"Eh, it's him and his weird pervy client's problem now."  He counted the cash again.  "Think we got enough to pay the bills and hit up that ice cream stand on the way back, you in?"

K_K smiled, the dirty deed dissolving from their mind.  They'd passed the stand on the way to meet the Hacker, and though K_K refrained from saying anything at the time, the flavor of the day -- key lime cheesecake swirl -- had spun in their disc drive since.  "Yeah!"

—

"No.  Get out."

Cap'n slammed the door behind him, scowling across the shop counter at Sweet.  "Whadda ya mean 'Get out'?  We live here."

"You're grounded!"  Sweet practically hissed the word.  "I had to sell CD bagels all day, while you two took your sweet time cleaning up the warehouse!"

All at once Cap'n remembered they hadn't actually cleaned a thing, the entire task completely forgotten once they'd uncovered that Keygen.

"Well, uh..."  Anything resembling a good excuse escaping him, Cap'n just handed Sweet a handful of money, which made the speaker's eye widen in shock.  "Here.  Pay your bills already, ya weirdo."

"Wh-Where the hell did you get this?!"

"We did one last job for our old gang and sold an illegal Keygen on the black market," K_K chirped, smiling cheerfully.  Sweet stared up at them for a few moments, processing their explanation, then laughed, returning the grin with his gaze.

"Oh, that's a good one, K_K!  You know, maybe I don't need to know what you guys really did to earn this, but I appreciate you putting in the effort.  This rebellion might actually be able to get somewhere with that attitude!"

"And we can buy more ice cream," K_K added, licking their lips.  They could still barely taste lime cheesecake.

"That too!"  He turned to Cap'n.  "Okay, you're un-grounded.  I just hope you still had a chance to get the place ready for the show!"

"Y-Yeah," Cap'n lied, giving Sweet a shaky thumbs-up.  "Good to go!"

As Sweet stuffed some of the money in an envelope addressed to the electric company and let K_K lick it shut, Cap'n examined what little the speaker managed to make on his own.  It was barely enough for the ice cream he'd just bought, much less the bills, but an extra business card tucked between two Dark Dollars caught his eye, and he turned it over to see an address scribbled onto the back.  "Yo, what's this for?"

"Oh, that..."  Setting aside the completed envelope to email, Sweet sighed deeply.  "I had a...run-in, with one of those Queen fanatics."  He still had that nasty taste in his speaker from having to pretend to like Queen.  "Invited me to one of their meetings tomorrow night, which, I figured, maybe one of us could go and spy on 'em for a bit?  Or you think that might be too much?"  Scratching his head, he glanced over at Cap'n curiously.

"That's...pretty risky," Cap'n agreed.  Sure, he could easily fake being Queen's biggest fan, much more so than Sweet at least, but if things went South...He looked at that address again.  It wasn't far, but still too far to run back to safety if he got caught.  

Watching over his smaller bandmates' heads K_K studied the card too, and the address.  "Hey, can I have this?  For my wall?"

"Oh...sure!"  Sweet passed it up to the CD player, smiling audibly.  K_K had been collecting business cards from almost everywhere they were offered, even one from the bakery the day before (prior to almost getting caught by Werewires, of course), that they'd been hanging up on one of the trio's bedroom walls as...some sort of art project, Sweet and Cap'n could only assume.  The spying idea was definitely too much anyway, as they got more than enough information from both the news and Cap'n's radio antenna, so while K_K hurried away to add their newest prize to the collection Sweet sank back into the couch, and so did Cap'n, their three collective eyes taking in the day's news report.

"So how bad did things get today?"

"Queen banned cryptocurrency, dropped its value to zero.  Now everyone's gotta use Dark Dollars for everything."

"Damn."  Cap'n knew two crypto-fans who weren't going to be too happy about the news, especially now that all their cash was gone.  "Ya think Queen actually follows her own laws?  Punishes herself for usin' Blipcoin or droppin' a piece of cheese or playin' mixtapes in her car?"

"I honestly doubt it."  People like Queen, in her position of absolute power above the rest of Cyber World's citizens...Sweet just couldn't see her taking any of the new laws seriously, the way she didn't even care how they affected everyone else.  It was yet another thing that stoked that fiery blaze within the speaker's soul, that made them seethe with a need for justice.  

Their fists clenched tightly, Sweet suddenly stood, turning towards the kitchen.  "You want some milk?  I want some milk."

"Yeah, sure."  Cap'n waved them off, sighing.  Sweet didn't have much of a face, but he could see frustration pulsing through their entire body, and hear it in their voice.  Sweet wanted to do something about it all, all the new laws, all the people hanging above on wires for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, all the fear that Sweet felt as they saw everything covered on the news in lurid detail, for themself and for people they'd never even met, but that they still felt for all the same.  But Cap'n knew, ultimately there was nothing they COULD do about the way things were, that even the most passionate rebellion would barely make a dent, and that made Sweet furious . 

So, as the speaker returned, handing Cap'n his glass of almond milk with shaking hands, he smirked up at them.  "Yo Sweet, I been thinkin'.  You know what our band really needs?"

"What."

"Groupies."  Sweet nearly spat.  "Think about it.  The three of us, we're so busy runnin' from Queen we barely get any time to hang with our fans.  So, why not take our fans on the run with us?"

Sweet growled, "We don't need groupies , Cap!!  You want us to get a reputation for being players or something?!" 

"I'm just sayin', more rebels for the cause..."  He laughed as Sweet angrily shook him by the collar, spilling milk everywhere.  If Sweet was going to be angry at the world around them, Cap'n preferred they direct it towards something they could actually do something about, even if it was just shutting him up.

Chapter Text

K_K stared at the wall above the desk in their bedroom, at the many business cards they'd tacked up in neat, orderly rows, each in its own proper place.  

An insurance Addison's card hung in the corner, and next to it a card listing store locations and phone numbers for a pizza chain.  An entire row of car dealerships and sales reps sat at K_K's eye level, and below them, florists and local artisans the CD player had met at a farmer's market set up right next door to one of the car lots.  Every single stall had a stack of business cards at them, and so K_K helped themself.

Their newest acquisition, though, had been hung in the perfect spot, right between Cyber Cotton Candy and this one guy they'd met at a record shop right before it'd shut its doors for good, who'd had a bunch of racing patches on his jacket.  K_K took a step back so they could view the entire wall at once -- it was filling up quickly, so many names and businesses, in easily-digestible card form – but as they read the Queen fanclub's address again K_K paused, spinning up a CD in their head as some buried data surfaced from deep within their CPU.  

The business cards were only one of their more recent fixations, and another was, of all things, memorizing the Cyber Field's data bus and roller coaster routes.  Buses and coasters, and other forms of public transportation, were simply big cars, after all, and K_K always loved watching them go, and reading the pamphlets and maps Cap'n would pick up for them to learn where they all went, where all the stops were.  Sometimes K_K spent their afternoons riding them around, watching as they passed each stop in sequence, and then at the end of the line switching to a route in the opposite direction, just for fun.

The address on that card was on Format St, on one of the nearby data bus routes, only a few stops down.  K_K thought about the things Sweet and Cap'n had said, about spying on the Queen fans.  They didn't think it was such a good idea either, a great way to get in trouble more than anything else, but then, K_K didn't have much idea what rebels against Queen even did in the first place.  The whole thing confused them, with Sweet and Cap'n only confusing them further, the way they took it all so seriously, or not-seriously depending on the circumstance.

K_K wondered...why didn't either of them just ask Queen to un-ban music?  Maybe they didn't know how?  K_K didn't know how to ask Queen either; Cap'n had told them once where her mansion was in the city, but as far as K_K knew none of the data buses went that far out.  But, if these guys at the meeting were Queen's friends...maybe they could ask?

It was worth a shot, at least.  

They stepped back out into the shop, where Cap'n and Sweet sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table, three mugs of coffee and K_K's plate of pancakes still sitting in front of them, almost cold.  "I'm gonna go ride the data bus for a while, okay?"

Blinking a couple of times, Cap'n swallowed his mouthful of CD bagel.  "Yeah, go ahead," he replied, waving them off happily.  He'd bought K_K their bus pass so they could ride whenever they pleased, so these announcements were nothing new.

They were unusual, however, right in the middle of breakfast.  K_K offered the rest of their pancakes to Sweet, who happily accepted, never one to refuse extra food, and double-checked to make sure they had their pass before heading out to the stop at the end of the street, only a block away from the junk shop. 

The only problem with memorizing the data bus timetables was, K_K was terrible with the actual times, only able to really remember the stops and their order.  It didn't help that the buses often ran behind schedule, meaning that even when they did get the right time they would sit for several minutes on the ground underneath the sign, cross-legged, watching the cars pass them by, before a bus finally showed.  And that day was no exception, with K_K absentmindedly drumming their fingers on the metal curb in front of them and counting the cars, but when the bus stopped they boarded and showed off their pass with a smile, and all too soon they saw the signs for Format St just outside the windows.  

It was only when K_K stepped off the bus that they realized they hadn't taken the card with the meeting address with them.  They'd even forgotten to note the exact time of the pro-Queen meeting, meaning it could've started before they arrived, or wouldn't start until late that night.

Cursing their faulty memory, K_K hummed in thought, nervously tapping their fingertips along the sides of their pant legs, on the thick reflective plastic sewn in.  They looked up and down the street to either side; in one direction it stretched out further than they could see, traffic lights and houses going for miles, and in the other it ended in a neat little cul-de-sac, surrounded on all sides by upscale apartments, where the data bus turned around and headed back the way it came, stranding the CD player there until the next arrival.  Format St was one of the nicer, more densely-populated parts of the Cyber Field, but it was quiet, boring, none of the windows betraying any partying happening inside and no shops or bakeries or car lots to break up the monotony, and so K_K did the only thing they could think to do: they sat cross-legged on the streetcorner again, right under the data bus sign, tapping out a silent drumbeat against the curb and watching the cars as they passed, waiting for any activity.

—

"We'll have them ready as soon as we can!"  Sweet was already drawing up blueprints, while Cap'n double-checked the client's contact information.  Here he'd been looking forward to trying out his new CD bagel pitches, when in walked a pink Addison woman looking for some scrap to be built.  And not even difficult scrap, at that -- she'd merely seen the cute pinwheels made of cut and welded and airbrushed metal out front, and had requested a few for her own store, thinking they'd help with the ambiance now that she couldn't play any music over the speakers.  The simple job had practically fallen into Cap'n's and Sweet's laps, and they'd been so excited it wasn't even until they'd agreed enthusiastically and the client left her details and headed out the door that they remembered those pinwheels had been almost entirely K_K's handiwork.

"So, what do we do until he gets back?"  

"I dunno.  Hang out, I guess?  Set up for bagels?"

Sweet glanced over at a few boxes of thin metal strips they'd gathered from the Trash Pile the week before.  "We can try making a few ourselves, and K_K can finish them up later.  How hard can these things be?"

Smiling, Cap'n agreed, setting out some tools and starting to cut up the strips into pieces they could use.  Before the two knew it they'd worked out a system, Cap'n cutting and shaping pinwheel blades and Sweet fashioning the central wheel out of thick wire and attaching them with masking tape, for K_K to weld into place upon their return.

As he passed over a stack of metal to Sweet, Cap'n sighed, already a little bored.  If anything, the job was TOO easy, and he came uncomfortably close to acidentally cutting his own fingers a few times, his mind wandering.  "Remind me when we drop these off to pass along my number."

Scoffing, Sweet lowered his speaker rim accusingly.  "Do you have to flirt with every female customer we get?"

"Hey, she's my type!"

"What the heck even is your type, Cap?"

"Oh, ya know.  Female, and a customer."  

Staring him down as he finished up the next few blades, Sweet sighed deeply.  "Care to be a little more specific?"

"Alright fine," Cap'n snarled, throwing his hands up in defeat.  He thought for a few moments.  "I guess...tall.  Nice legs, nice arms, nice smile.  Good dancer, real fun to be around."

Sweet shot Cap'n a knowing look.

"Or, I guess on the flip side...smart, real smart.  Can keep up with me, finish my sentences sometimes.  Passionate, shows their feelings more in what they do than on their face.  I guess I can take or leave dancin' but they definitely gotta have rhythm!"

Sweet shot Cap'n an even more knowing look.  "She wasn't any of those things, Cap."

"Oh well?  A guy's gotta take his chances, right?  Maybe her type's bad boy rebels against Queen!"  Someday, Cap'n would take his chances right into Queen's dungeon, Sweet figured.  

The blacklights overhead flickered, as they had all week, making Sweet suck in a breath.  

They wouldn't go out for good, he told himself.  He'd sent in the electric payment that morning!  They were safe for at least another month, maybe more with all the money Cap'n and K_K had scrounged up the day before!  But, to the speaker's horror, the lights flickered again, more intensely, before cutting out completely with a loud pop, leaving him and Cap'n in pure darkness.

"That didn't just happen."

"Sure looks like it did to me," Cap'n replied, pushing his sunglasses up onto his forehead.  The darkness didn't impede his vision too much – the natural state of a Dark World was the same pitch black as its Fountain, after all.  All Darkners were perfectly comfortable without light, outlines of shapes and textures around them illuminating to their eyes with enough of a faint glow that they could get around without any trouble.  But, Cap'n would gladly take those blurry outlines over the blinding glare that the golden pixels in his eyes flooded his glasses with, without the blacklights to provide contrast.

" Tell me it didn't happen."  Planting his palms against the shop's windows, Sweet strained to see what was going on outside, finally bursting out the door to see two electricians finishing up their work on the shop's connections.  "What the hell are you doing?!"

One of the electricians, a Plugboy, frowned at the speaker with their ground socket.  "Cuttin' yous guys off for non-payment!"

"That's bullshit.  I paid the bills this morning!"

"This it?"  The Plugboy produced the very email Sweet had sent, its seal opened, the money still there in full.  "Sorry buddy, we can't accept crypto anymore, Queen's law."

"Crypto?!  The hell are you talking about, this is..."  Sweet pulled out the money, only to gasp as he studied it more closely.  Rather than standard Dark Dollars, with Queen's face emblazoned in the center of the design and the Delta Rune itself on the back, each of the bills had an image of Nubert instead, with "One Hundred Nubertcoins" stamped along each side.

As the Plugboy's Werewire partner finished disconnecting the power cables and tugged on his own wire to be hoisted up, the Plugboy sighed.  "Listen, I didn't report ya since it's only the first day.  But yous guys better find some Dark Dollars fast, cause Queen ain't takin' any of this funny money no more."

"Funny money..."  Sweet watched the Werewire reach down and scoop up his partner before vanishing into the black sky, and stomped back inside, shoving one of those Nubert bills into Cap'n's chest.

"Yo, what-!"  Lifting his glasses again, Cap'n squinted down at its faint outline.  "Where'd this come from, Sweet?"

"I was just gonna ask you the exact same thing."  Despite the deceptive calm in his voice, Sweet's volume peaked, and he pointed to the rest of the cash Cap'n and K_K had brought home from their little scheme the day before, none of which counted as legal tender anymore.  "Cap, where the HELL did you get this stuff?!"

He shrugged.  "Nubert.  Man, I swear I thought it was cash, I didn't know none of this was gonna be illegal today," he stammered, backing away as Sweet got closer, the tension in his speakers palpable.  But, Sweet shut his eye tight, shaking out his fury; there really wasn't any way Cap'n could've known Queen would ban crypto overnight.  

Once again, Queen was the one to blame.  Queen was the one Sweet should be angry at, not Cap'n.  The list of reasons just grew longer, her betrayal of her citizens, and Sweet, at the top.

"Just...tell me something, Cap," he said, sinking back onto his stool behind the workbench.  "Is the starter on our welding torch electric?"

Cap'n glanced over at it, sitting on a shelf nearby, and the electric cord dangling down onto the floor.  "Yeah."

"Is our airbrush electric?"

"Yeah."

"Is our fridge electric?"

"Yep."  

"Is your toothbrush electric?"

"Absolutely."

"Are almost all of our guitars electric?"

"Of course."

"Is our soundproofing system electric?"

Cap'n paused, needing to check that one.  He located one of the devices mounted along the shop walls, a node for the mesh network of sound magic that essentially trapped all other sound the band made within it, a very, very thin barrier between them and big trouble.  Normally, there was a red light when it was working properly; even with his glasses off Cap'n saw nothing but black.

"Yeah.  It's all off."

Sweet slammed their speaker down onto the workbench, narrowly missing the pinwheel they'd been working on.  "So, no music, then."  If they put any on to listen to while they were working, if they played a single note, no matter how quiet, it was bound to be picked up by Queen.  "We're toast."

"Sweet, you forget you're wearin' headphones?"  As Sweet glared up at him Cap'n laughed, coming in close and pulling one of his own earpieces off for a second so he could hear the hip hop CD he'd been playing on his own hardware.  "Just...don't crank it too high, we'll be alright for a while."

"You think so?  We've still got a concert at the end of the week, and no way we can practice!  It's gonna be at least a day before we have the funds to pay that electric bill, plus the late fee..."

Sweet gripped the sides of his head as he ran all the numbers through it but Cap'n pulled his hands back down, gently laying bits of cut metal and the roll of masking tape into them.  "So then we got some work to do, alright?  Let's just keep at it, wait for K_K to get back.  Then, we'll work out a new plan."

---

It felt like K_K spent days tapping out rhythms against the sidewalk, then humming a few, then shutting up right away when a couple of nearby Werewires' sensitive ears turned their direction, then pulling out a Game Friend to catch a few Digibeasts, then splaying out across the metal sidewalk on their back, staring up at the bright green wireframe stretching across the dark sky overhead, and receiving more than a few concerned stares from passersby.  When the next data bus arrived K_K was almost ecstatic to board, to hurry home and jam again, having almost forgotten why they'd gotten off at Format St in the first place.

First, though, they waited politely as a crowd of Plugboys got off ahead of them.  Curiously, they all seemed to be heading the same direction, down the side of the street leading off towards Cyber City far in the distance, and chatting excitedly amongst themselves, so as the driver motioned for K_K to get on they merely shook their head, assuring them they'd catch the next one.

Following a short distance behind the group, K_K watched the Plugboys all approach one of the nondescript houses along the block, and as soon as the bowler hat-wearing Plugboy from the cupcake shop opened his door to greet them K_K heard faint, but distinct sounds of screeching and crashing and distorted notes from within -- noise music.

This had to be the pro-Queen meeting they'd come to sneak into.  K_K watched as each one of the Plugboys handed the host their business card with the place's address for him to check, but taking their place at the back of the line K_K gulped, unable to produce one on their turn.

However, the Plugboy in the bowler cap just looked up at the massive CD player, and smiled in recognition, far friendlier than K_K had seen previously.  "Your speaker friend couldn't make it, huh?"

"No."  

"That's fine, I know ya.  One good thing about you robot Darkners, you guys almost never need hats to tell yourselves apart!"  K_K smiled; his guy definitely hadn't met Cap'n before.  The host waved him into the meeting just as he had all the rest, and the instant K_K crossed the threshold into the house the noise ceased as a record scratched somewhere, the crowd composed of Plugboys, Werewires, a few Addisons, and two red-suited Swatchlings all turning in unison and staring at the newcomer, the one Darkner among them whose very identity was everything they stood against.

"Guys, guys, it's okay.  We finally managed to get a few of the robots to see reason!"  Reason?  A reason for what?  But before K_K could dwell on it any further the Plugboy nudged his leg.  "Go on, you're a noise musician now, right?"  

"Oh.  I think so, yeah!"  Digging into their pocket, K_K produced one of their upcoming concert fliers as proof, which all the party guests passed around excitedly.  The "music" resumed, and the party host led K_K around, approaching a few guests and making introductions.

"This is my buddy P3T-E, he works with me as one of Queen's enforcers, reporting any law-breaking he sees going on out here in the Field.  Over there are Diode and Faraday Addison, they live right across the street and bring brownies every week, you're gonna love 'em!"  K_K was already licking their plastic lips, eyeing the plate of them eagerly.  "They've got a few shops around the fields and a grandson who's already on track to be the star pupil over at Queen's Academy, over in the next sector.  Jan and Jen, they just got married, and spent their entire honeymoon in the city bustin' robots for playin' music in the streets!  ...No offense, of course."

"Uh...I'm happy for them?"  K_K's focus was more on the house itself than the people within it – so this was how Queen's allies lived.  K_K would've never guessed it would be so similar to their own junk shop, homey and cluttered with knicknacks and photos along the walls, the only major differences being a fresh coat of paint and a thorough vacuuming.  Seizing the opportunity they reached for the nearby snack table and snatched up a brownie, which was indeed as tasty as promised.

"Oh, and I gotta introduce you to Scarlet, he works for Queen personally, as one of her mansion butlers!  He mentioned once, he had a robot friend like you when he was younger!"

K_K shook the big burly Swatchling's wing, before he hurriedly disappeared somewhere into the house, getting as far away from the CD player as he could and leaving them puzzled. 

Someone called the host over, and he patted K_K's leg encouragingly.  "Anyway, if I go any further we'll be here all night, go ahead and mingle!  Don't worry about any trouble, we're all friends of Queen here!"  Friends of Queen, huh.  K_K knew it, these were the perfect people to pass on their message, to ask her if she could un-ban music!  It was just a matter now of asking, without a host to facilitate.

It wasn't obvious just from looking at the CD player, but K_K wasn't nearly as social as their bandmates.  With the host returning to his duties they stood right where he'd left them with an empty smile, suddenly lost, unsure where to start, who to talk to, what 'mingling' was.  K_K loved parties, but that love began and ended with the dancefloor – unfortunately noise music wasn't easy to dance to, even if there were a designated spot set up for it like at all the other parties they'd attended.  

Slowly, K_K returned to the snack table, munching on another brownie.  They were indeed popular, with other guests shoving their way past them to claim their own treats, and K_K wished they knew how to strike up a conversation.  They wished they had Cap'n's ability to smooth-talk anyone into listening to what he had to say, or Sweet's natural energy that simply attracted people's attention like a magnet.

K_K smiled, and waved, and stood aside and watched, but none of it was enough.  They could blend in well enough, their height aside, but for once they couldn't simply blend in with the crowd.  This time they needed to act, to find someone who they could talk to, to ask about Queen.

"Uh...hi," K_K attempted, barely louder than the music, as he turned toward the next party guest to go for the brownies.  Completely ignored, they hadn't even heard him, his speech synthesizer barely putting out anything louder than a whisper.  As the next guest reached toward the plate K_K tried again, louder this time, trying to stifle an anxious crack as he loaded some new voice files.  "Hey, I'm K_K!"  Once again, no dice, the interference from those brownies completely drowning him out, so he backed away from the snack table entirely.  

Of course, the CD player naturally gravitated towards the entertainment setup in the corner, an old, not-robotic record player and a few small speakers.  The noise music grew louder as K_K approached, and for a moment they knelt in front of one of the speakers and listened, their social difficulties melting away into the disjointed groove.  With a little more bass, it might actually be fun to listen to...and as K_K processed the individual sounds, chaotic and rhythmless as they were, they couldn't help but think how much fun it had to be to make.  Maybe they could add a few noise music tracks to their upcoming show, for real, just to spice things up!  At least, if they could convince Sweet, which could be an entire battle of its own, with the speaker so adamantly against anything that even reminded him of Queen.

Snapped out of their trance by a staticky tap on the shoulder, K_K looked up into the "face" of a Werewire, her cord trailing up and out a nearby window as she lounged next to the speakers.  "You were a musician," she signed with her long fingers, holding up the poster K_K had passed around at the door.  K_K wasn't sure exactly how she'd read it with her eye sockets occupied, but they smiled at the recognition.  "You know, I liked Sweet Cap'n Cakes' music before you switched."

"Oh, we still make regular music!"  K_K paused, making a quick sweep of the room behind them.  Miraculously, no one had heard them over the speakers, besides their sensitive-eared listener.

"You...regular music..."  The Werewire gripped K_K's shoulders as she dragged him off to the side, into an empty hallway off the main room, before her hands flailed, signing wildly.  "No one is watching?"

"No."  

"I thought I was the only one here," she signed, her motions so exaggerated K_K thought she would start sobbing.  "I still love music, but I have to act like I support Queen.  If anyone knew I was a rebel, I would be in trouble!"

Listening closely with their eyes, K_K nodded, recognizing some of their own struggles in her "voice."  "Isn't it hard?  To pretend you like Queen when you really don't?"

"Extremely.  Queen is always in my head after all."  She motioned to her wire.  A friend started calling the Werewire's name, and she abruptly waved goodbye to K_K, wishing them luck, both with their concert and with the party.  "Do not get caught," she signed quickly behind her back as she departed.

So K_K wasn't the only one there lying to everyone, to keep from getting in trouble...it made them feel a little better about being there, a little less nervous.  

A new curiosity worked its way through their processor, K_K wondering if these people really were as bad as Sweet and Cap'n said.  Sweet had always said to stay away from anyone who looked like they might do K_K harm, and that Queen supporters would gladly do so at any time, but the CD player struggled to equate the two statements in their head – when K_K first arrived and looked across the party they'd been shocked at just how average-looking every single guest really was.  To Sweet, even just being in that room would've marked them all guilty of unspeakable crimes against music, immediately considering them the enemy, while to Cap'n it might've taken a little more, if he even truly cared.  Mostly he only wanted to see if he could get a few bucks or a laugh out of them.  But to K_K, these "friends of Queen"...didn't seem bad .  Confused, maybe, but if one Werewire was secretly a rebel, perhaps Sweet was wrong about them, that there were others who were on K_K's side, or at least, who meant well, even if they didn't quite agree on the definition of "well."  While they were there, while they mingled, K_K could figure it out for sure; they had a whole party laid out before them to work with after all.  

Snapping out of their thoughts they realized the Werewire they'd been talking to had left the concert flier with them, and so, with a conversation starter in hand and their confidence dial cranked up to the max, K_K made their way back out into the crowd.

"So, the show is in an old warehouse in Cyber City?"

"Yeah!"

"And you're only playing noise music?"

"Well..."  

K_K thought for a moment.  They weren't the best at crafting lies but Cap'n had given them a few tips – "Just give 'em the truth," he'd told them, "minus the parts they don't need to hear."

"There's gonna be a few...'surprises,' on our setlist, Sweet's really excited about it!  Plus I'm setting up lasers!"  

The group of Plugboys K_K was speaking to chattered excitedly among themselves, and one in particular tugged on their pant leg, speaking in a hushed voice so his companions couldn't hear.  "It's real music, isn't it?  You're really gonna play real music again?!"  

Smiling, K_K nodded, making the Plugboy squeal with delight, another rebel in the making.  This was the fifth such group who K_K had spoken to, and each time there had been at least one, an observation that made their soul soar!

But, not everyone at the party was a rebel like K_K.  Standing behind that fifth group was P3T-E, the one K_K had been introduced to as one of Queen's enforcers.  As the others left he caught the CD player, motioning for them to lean down so he could whisper into their "ear."  

"Hey, I think I know what you're up to.  I won't report you to Queen since I'm off-duty, and I don't think one slip-up should be considered enough to be wired for anyway, but I'd advise you to be more careful – some of my buddies like the guy at the door aren't so lenient."  He motioned to the Plugboy in the bowler hat, still greeting a few late arrivals.  "I don't personally agree with Queen's new laws and hate havin' to wire up musicians like you, but I do have a job to perform.  When I'm on duty."  

He winked, and K_K nodded, slipping the concert flier back into their pocket; even off-duty P3T-E was definitely not on their side.  K_K 5, Sweet 1.

But, beyond the concert invitations, K_K finally started to find their confidence to start conversation on their own, finding far more friends than they would've expected if they'd just stuck to the music fans.  

The older purple and pink Addison women who'd brought the brownies, Diode and Faraday, admitted that they had absolutely no interest in music or politics at all, preferring to stay neutral on Queen, even if their families sometimes didn't agree with such a stance.  That they only came to their neighbor's parties because they enjoyed baking for them, something to which K_K could certainly relate, and the two of them made a promise to swap their brownie recipe for K_K's CD bagels the next time they ran into each other, at the weekly meetups or otherwise!  

The other Swatchling butler who K_K hadn't yet met, Vermillion, was extremely proud of her position as a docent in Queen's portrait gallery, a fact she boasted about at every opportunity.  But, after a few glasses of battery acid, she told him about a little game she liked to play whenever she was assigned to clean, where she'd leave a smudge of color to deface one of the paintings, knowing that she could always use her color-based magic to remove it later, and see if anyone noticed.  So far she hadn't been caught, although Vermillion was sure she'd seen a few of the other butlers out of the corner of her eye once staring at one of the altered paintings, squawking in amusement. 

The Pluggirl newlyweds even sought K_K out specifically, to apologize for the unfortunate story their leader had told them, which turned out to merely be a rumor that'd gotten out of hand.  The pair had actually been married several months earlier, long before music had been banned, and when they'd checked into a hotel after a long day taking in the sights of Cyber City for their honeymoon their room happened to be right next to a rowdy group of music player robots like K_K.  The entire night they'd played loud music and danced nonstop, disturbing the Pluggirls and so, exhausted and stressed, they did the only thing they could think to do at the time, and called on Queen's city guards to have the group removed from the hotel.

"Those robots weren't harming anyone, just having fun, and if the two of us had known better at the time we would've handled it differently, maybe even knocking on the door and asking to join the party!"  They apologized again for not setting the story straight earlier.  "We truly don't have anything against robots, K_K, and we hope you don't think badly of everyone here either."  K_K promised them, as they handed out a concert flier, they didn't.

It was better to love instead of hate, after all, wasn't it?  It was one of the reasons K_K had come to the party in the first place, they decided, to find common ground instead of judge, to listen and learn instead of turn away, and K_K was glad they did.  They'd had a fun time, and met plenty of new people, and couldn't wait to tell Sweet and Cap'n how many, rebels and non-rebels alike, would be coming to their concert!  

As the evening wound down and the brownies finally ran out K_K noticed some headlights outside one of the windows, a data bus barreling down Format St.  They dashed for the door, muttering hasty goodbyes – K_K wasn't good with the actual times on the timetables but knew the bus didn't like to run too late, so they couldn't be sure if this would be the last one of the night or not.  As they left the host Plugboy in the bowler cap shook their hand one final time, grinning.  

"Hey, stop by next week.  Remember, there's rebels against Queen hiding everywhere, even right under our noses-"  He didn't know how right he was.  "-so we country boys gotta stick together!"

K_K definitely wasn't a country boy, but they replied, "We do," with a subtle giggle that the Plugboy failed to notice.  As they flashed their bus pass and took their seat K_K realized they'd completely forgotten to ask if anyone could pass on his message to Queen, but it was fine, K_K could always ask at the next week's meeting.  If they didn't forget again.  

Watching the bus stops fly past and imagining themself speeding along the route on their own four wheels, K_K finally reached the junk shop, their grin nearly going from edge to edge of their head casing, but their joy was short-lived.  As they opened the door and flicked the lightswitch, they blinked in confusion as the room stayed pitch black, and making their way further inside they scanned the workbench, which was filled with cut and taped scraps of metal, and passed it into the back room, where in the dark they located Sweet laying facedown on the couch, silent, their empty tape player and dozens of spent batteries strewn across the floor in front of them.

"Sweet?  Why are the lights off?  And were you guys making more pinwheels without me?"

"Don't bother Sweet," Cap'n called from the kitchen, where K_K peeked in to see him scooping spoonfuls of melted ice cream into his mouth like it was soup.  "He's not a happy speaker since we ran outta AAs."

Staring down at the tape player again, K_K eventually managed to divine his meaning.  "Maybe I can play him a CD instead?" they asked, swiping a jewel case from a nearby box.

"DON'T!!"  Immediately Sweet shot up, his arms outstretched as if to snatch the disc right out of K_K's hand, though ultimately he could do little more than just hop in place trying to reach.  "We're not soundproof, K_K!"

"Why not?"

"We lost power.  No electricity."

"Why not?"

"Because CAP'N gave me CRYPTO to pay the bills with!!"  Sweet angrily shoved the boombox, almost getting an eyeful of melted ice cream for the effort, but thankfully K_K pulled the two apart before things escalated to that level.  "And I'm pretty sure you didn't come into that shit entirely legally either!"

"Are you a rebel or not?!"  Cap'n childishly stuck his tongue out at Sweet, who, lacking a way to return it, opted for a very un-childlike gesture instead. 

"Hey."  K_K manually pushed Cap'n's tongue back into his mouth, and lowered Sweet's finger.  "Change into your pajamas."

Cap'n squinted up at him.  "Into our...huh?  Why?"

"For the slumber party!"  Two parties in one day had to be a new record!  And even if it wasn't, K_K determined, it had to be better than their bandmates getting out of tune yet again.  

Pouring themself another bowl of ice cream and adding sprinkles, they urged the other two to hurry up and get ready.  Just the suggestion seemed to put Sweet in a better mood, with him returning first in a pair of yellow pinstriped pajamas and a grin in his eye, as he eagerly sat next to K_K.  

"So, what do we do first?"

"Hm?"  Blinking as they took a bite of their ice cream soup, K_K glanced down at him.  "Oh yeah, you've never had a slumber party before!  I only had one once."

"What was it like?"

"It was a lot of fun!  We, uh...slept."  They smiled.  "But not in our beds, we put our blankets on the floor and slept there!"

"So...we should sleep on the floor?"  Sweet's enthusiasm started to wane.  

"And have candy!"

"Oh, okay."

"That ain't no slumber party," Cap'n interrupted, standing in the doorway in a Sweet Cap'n Cakes T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms.  "You gotta have movies!  Pizza!  Games!  Late-night conversations about what's goin' on in your very soul!  ...Actually scratch that last one."

"What movie did you get all that from, Cap?"

"Teenagers in Love 3:  The Slumbering."

Sweet rolled his eye.  "Damn it, you've never had one either have you?!"

The boombox bristled at the accusation.  "I've been to one once!"  He'd had to call his mom and leave halfway through, but it still counted!  "Anyway, we're not even close to ready.  No movies, no pizza, and games are pretty much board games or nothin'."

"We can still put out blankets and sleep in the living room!"  K_K smiled, a slight smirk creeping into the very corner.  "And...late-night conversations."

Cap'n facepalmed.  "Ya know what?  Sure.  We'll do that.  Slumber party of the century."  

Huffing, he made his way to the couch and slapped down one of the cushions, laying onto it in a manner that suggested he was trying to make himself as uncomfortable as possible, his spine wrenched at an angle and one of his legs wrapped underneath himself.

But, K_K didn't follow right away, merely leaning back against the couch next to Cap'n while Sweet gathered blankets and extra pillows for the three of them.  When he glanced up at them they patted their lap, inviting him to get comfortable, and, reluctantly, he obliged, moving his head where they directed him and snuggling close.

"Guys?"

"Yeah K_K?"

"We forgot the candy."

"That's fine," Sweet said sleepily, mimicking Cap'n as he swapped his pillows for K_K's lap as well, and draped a big blanket around the three of them.  "We can get some in the morning."

Chapter Text

Passing Sweet the bag of candy he'd purchased, Cap'n shuffled behind K_K, his back to the street, desperate for what little privacy their bulky CD player body could offer as he lifted his shirt for them, granting access to the battery slot on his back.  K_K was quick, swapping the boombox's batteries out in seconds, and Cap'n sighed in deep relief as he retreated back into his hoodie, pulling out a second pack to return the favor.

"Man, really wish you and your tape player'd left us at least a couple packs of these things," he hissed, making Sweet groan, guilty as charged.  As soon as he was able Cap'n yanked his power cord tail from one of the outlets along the wall of the convenience store the trio had hurried to the instant it opened that morning, their batteries dry and their bodies weak.  Sweet, normally "The Energetic One," had barely enough left to even make it out the door, having to ride on his turntable to keep from tumbling off one of the steep metallic ledges on the way in his daze, and it sat plugged in next to him as he scarfed down candy and coffee, anything to get his energy back.

"I don't think we could've lasted another hour," he muttered as he checked on its battery, more to the turntable itself than to his companions.  "No electricity at the shop is a BAD situation, guys.  We can't keep doing this every morning!"

"You said it," Cap'n said through a deep blue blush, as he folded and stowed away his rarely-seen tail into his jacket, leaning casually against the outlet as K_K still remained plugged in, giving their brand-new batteries a break.  "But, how are we gonna make any dough without power?  We can't work on scrap, we can't bake CD bagels, we can't recharge ourselves, we can't do nothin'!"

"What we really need is a generator," Sweet suggested, sugar and caffeine finally starting to work their magic on his tired circuits.  "We should have most of the parts, it's just a matter of finding..."

"...somewhere we can put 'em together."  Already, Cap'n had that place in mind.  Electricity, plenty of space, good food, only downside would be...he shook his head.  It would be a small price to pay for all the benefits, and so Cap'n swallowed his pride, pulled out his phone, and dialed his parents' number.

"Cappy!"  Well, at least they were sticking to his new name.  Sort of.  "You haven't called in over a month, is everything alright out there?"

"Yeah, Mom, it's great!  We just, uh..."  There was never an easy way to admit when they were completely screwed, especially not to his mom.  "Listen, you guys mind if we crash out there for a bit?  Shop's, uh, outta commission for a few days."

"We've got no electricity and scrap work to finish and if I can't play music I'll die!" Sweet called out, loud enough to be heard over the receiver, making Cap'n groan.

He heard Anna gasp.  "Honey, why didn't you just say so!  Of course you can work here, and stay as long as you need to!  I'll go get the guest bedroom ready!"

"Mom, you don't gotta-"

"Hey, is that Cecil?"  Cap'n's soul seized in his chest, hearing his father's distant voice say that particular name.  Edward apparently took the phone from his wife as she hurried upstairs, speaking more clearly.  "Is everything alright?  Queen didn't come after you again did she?"

" Dad, we talked about the name.  It's Cap'n now, " he hissed through clenched teeth, his face practically glowing as his blush returned.  "And look, we ain't in any trouble.  Sweet and K_K had a couple run-ins but they're fine.  Everything's fine!"

"Then why are you calling for our help," Ed responded smugly.  "And...sorry, Cap'n.  It just slipped my mind!  I won't use your real name in front of the guys, I promise."

"That's okay, we know his name's not really Cap'n," K_K cut in, leaning lazily over Cap'n's shoulder to listen in.

Sweet laughed, poking his head around as well.  "Yeah, if your parents had actually called you that from the start I would've been worried!"

Covering the phone with his hand, Cap'n sneered back at his bandmates, "Do you guys not have any respect for a private phone conversation?!"

"Put us on speaker already then, Cap!  I like talking to your folks!"

"It's true, I think our last six status updates on your little 'resistance' were from Sweet since you didn't bother," Ed confirmed, making Cap'n facepalm.  Nothing got past his dad, ever.

"Alright, whatever!  Knock yourselves out!"  He passed the device to K_K and Sweet as he went back inside the store to cool down, and to grab some almond milk for the road.

—

"You really need all this to build...What is it you three are building again?"

"A generator, Dad."

"I see..."  Ed scratched his head, watching Cap'n and Sweet sort out the parts they needed across the back patio, while K_K finished welding the half-made pinwheels on a rusted steel backyard table, their torch plugged into an outlet nearby.  "I'm pretty sure I've read a few books on electricity generation, maybe I could help with the design?"

"There's no need, sir, really!  Already have the blueprints ready to go in here," Sweet replied, playfully tapping the side of their head.  

Cap'n unloaded the last cardboard box of parts, and squinted down in confusion.  "Yo Sweet, where's this strut go?" he asked, holding up the unidentified piece.

"Uh..."  Sweet's face flushed around his speaker, and he simply waved Cap'n off, directing him to add yet another item to the "Not sure" pile.

"All done!"  Pushing up their mask and shedding their bulky gloves, K_K held one of their finished pieces for the others to see, flicking the blades with their finger to set them spinning.  "Your turn now, Cap'n!"

"Alright!"  Cap'n excitedly plugged in his airbrush and compressor, his mind spinning with possibilities, but then he frowned, turning back to Edward as the older robot lounged on the back steps.  "Yo, you uh, got like a tablecloth you don't mind me ruinin' or something?  I forgot to grab a tarp..."

Coming up behind his son, Ed studied the different-colored inks Cap'n set out, or at least the labels showing what colors each would be as they actually sprayed, smiling.  "You know, this old table needs a new coat of paint anyway.  Why don't you go wild!"  He winked.  "We never did give you any chores, so you can consider this your first one, in exchange for staying the night!"

Out of nowhere Anna rushed out of the house, snatching Cap'n up and squeezing him tight.  "Quit making my little baby work for helping him, Eddie!"  After a quick bear hug she finally set him back down onto his feet, to catch his breath – even after a lifetime of those hugs he was never ready.  "Honey, don't you ever think you have to do anything to pay us back!  We'll always be here to take care of you if you need us!"

"I'm fine!!  Mom come on, I'm a grown CD player, you can't baby me forever!"

" Watch me, " she replied, a dead serious glare in her eyes.  But, at Cap'n's insistence she relented, smiling and hugging him one more time and watching over his shoulder as he got to work airbrushing the scrap pinwheels on the bare table surface, the ink spraying the metal blades but also leaving imprints once they were moved, multicolored shadows forever marking where they'd been.  "You know...that could make a very creative design!"

"Ya think so?"  Right away the gears in Cap'n's head started turning, designing stencils to make more interesting shapes in the paint than plain metal squares.  "We'd need a base coat under it all, though, and I dunno if this little thing's gonna cut it."

"Maybe we can buy some spray paint?  Just like when we-"  

Right away Cap'n slammed his hand over K_K's mouth, laughing nervously as both of his parents stared.  "They mean, we never used spray paint before!  Certainly not for anythin' graffiti-like!"

Ed squinted suspiciously at him, despite his best efforts. 

"It was years ago!  And we never got caught, alright!"  

"You're not in any trouble, Cap'n," his dad assured him, gently patting his head as thin trails of steam escaped his vents.  "You know we've always supported you expressing yourself, in...whatever form that takes.  I might still have some paint in the garage, you can help yourself to whatever colors you like!"

An alarm suddenly rang out, and Sweet pulled a watch out of his suitcase.  "Three!"

"Shit," Cap'n grumbled.  He grabbed his own bag and dashed into the house to change, re-emerging in a T-shirt instead of his usual blue hoodie, and with a can of house paint in his hand.  "I'm startin' to wonder which of these laws I hate more, the music ban or this."

"Why did you wear your hoodie today in the first place, Cappy?"

"'Cause I like it, Mom!"  Pouring the blue paint into a tray and passing out a few brushes, Cap'n accepted his parents' offers to help with the table, freeing up K_K to assist Sweet with the generator, already partially-assembled on the other side of the patio.

"You know, I've been thinkin'," Sweet started, handing K_K a screwdriver and a few pieces to work on, "with this baby we might not even need to pay the electric bill, ever.  We can just go off this entirely!"

"You think we could do that for the other stuff too?"

"That's exactly it!  We could set up the shop to be completely self-sufficient, off the grid!  We'll never have to pay Queen another Dark Dollar, and they say the best way to protest someone is through their wallet!"

K_K's disc drive whirred with excitement.  "Then we can buy data bus passes for Cyber City, too!"

"Uh...Sure!  It'd be a great way to get around!"  Sweet laughed.  He still didn't understand the bus thing at all, especially when they had a perfectly good jet-powered flying turntable to get them where they needed to go, but it made K_K happy, so it made him happy too.  "And we could get a set of Sweet Cap'n Cakes business cards printed!"

"Really?!"  The pixels in their eyes literally switching from pupils to sparkles, K_K swapped the hand screwdriver for a powered version and doubled their efforts, and the generator started coming together in rapid time.

"Goodness," Anna observed, glancing over toward them, "you three really are experts at this whole scrap work thing!"

"Nah, we're just really good," K_K corrected her.  "I need to weld stuff again, is the table ready?"

"Not even close."  Setting aside his paintbrush, Cap'n furiously turned the can over, scanning the label.  "Dad, how long does this stuff take to dry?!"

"Um..." 

After a moment of awkward silence, Anna clapped her hands together, smiling.  "Well, it sounds like the perfect time for a break!  You three look like you're starving, did you have breakfast?"

"Only the finest candy at the convenience store."

She stared at Cap'n, and gasped.  "That's not breakfast, Cappy!  No wonder you three look so hungry after all that work!  Come inside and I'll get started on some lunch."

As they followed her, Sweet nudged Cap'n's arm.  "Hey, not that I'm complaining about free food, but why is it every time we check in your mother worries about us getting enough to eat?  She knows we're robots and technically don't have to, right?"

"Just how she is.  Trust me, you can finish eating a five-course meal and she'll still say you're starvin'."

Sweet smiled, a low chuckle in his voice.  "Reminds me of my grandparents.  One can only 'mangia' so much..."  He watched Anna set up to make some spaghetti code.  "It's just...still somethin' I'm getting used to, I guess.  Only time my mother ever made lunch for me it was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

"Yeah?  What's so wrong about that?"

"I'm allergic to peanut butter, remember?"

"Oh."

Sweet noticed Anna grab a stack of plates and begin setting them out.  "Oh, ma'am, if you need any help setting the table..."

Anna stopped him right there.  "Sweetie, if I want any help, I'll ask.  And I will not ask."  Man, like mother like son, Sweet told himself, watching Cap'n stubbornly insist on changing back into his hoodie now that they were inside, out of sight of any potential neighborhood snitches.  "Now, would you like something to drink while the spaghetti's cooking?  We started buying almond milk just for you three!"

"Really?"  Without even waiting for permission K_K dove into the fridge and poured himself a glass, making Anna laugh as she finished setting the table and returned to her cooking, with Ed passing her ingredients.  Sweet said nothing, just sitting there in silence with his own milk, noticing that Anna had accidentally swapped the forks and knives and readjusting his silverware to their proper positions.

"I've heard about how much you like your food, Sweetie, so don't worry at all about asking for seconds.  All of you, just help yourselves!"

Looking uncomfortably down at his plate, Sweet cleared his throat.  "Oh, um, in that case, ma'am, I hate to ask but uh..."

—

"You finally fill up that black hole you got for a stomach?"

"Shut up, Cap.  One more hollow speaker joke, and I'll..."  It wasn't Sweet's fault he'd had seconds, thirds, fourths, even fifths, the plate was simply too small and the digital pasta was simply too good!  Yeah, it wasn't his fault at all.  "I'm amazed your mother had no problem making an entire second batch just for me."

"Yeah, she's cool like that!"  With lunch finished the trio had dragged the kitchen table outside to finish up the generator, with K_K once again expertly handling the welding torch alongside Sweet, letting Cap'n lean against the side of the house, doing nothing more than literally watching paint dry.  

In his defense, he'd offered to help pass K_K parts to weld, and to help both of his parents clean up the kitchen, but Sweet had the parts covered, and Anna and Ed had yet again told their son not to worry, that he didn't have to work for them, that he could go outside with his friends and let them take care of everything.  "Dinner, though, we're orderin' everyone pizza.  No sense makin' Mom cook twice!"

Even with a full stomach Sweet perked up at the suggestion.  "Ooh, with olives!  And anchovies!  And pineapple!"

"On yours maybe, Cap'n grumbled, trying not to gag.  With the toppings he insisted on, Sweet almost always needed his own separate pizza.

"I'll take your pineapple if you don't want it, Cap'n."

"Hah, that's two against one!"

"Gonna be two against three in about fifteen seconds..."  Cap'n knocked on the kitchen window, a few feet from where he stood.  "Yo guys, what do you think about pineapple on pizza?"

"Nasty!" Anna shouted back.

"An interesting flavor profile," Edward added, "but no thank you!"

"And there ya go," the boombox said, smugly.  He really needed to visit his parents more often, he'd win a lot more arguments with them on his side.

"You only don't like it because your parents don't!  They got you biased!"  

"I think you mean, they raised me right!"

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?!"

"It means-"

"If we order pizza for everyone..."  Hanging up their welding equipment, K_K leaned against the metal wall with Cap'n, thinking out loud.  Very loud, to drown out yet another incoming argument.  "We'll be that much closer to finally having our slumber party!"

"...You're really stuck on that ain'tcha?  This the new business card and bus stop thing?"

"No, they're right, Cap!"  Grinning, Sweet jumped up in excitement.  "We promised that if the power went out, we'd have one, a real one!  And we are staying over at your old house..."

"And we're gonna have pizza..."  

"And I brought a few games and movies to distract us from not being able to play any music..."

"And we can sleep on the floor!"  The party was definitely starting to take shape, and Cap'n gulped, his chances of worming his way back out dropping.  

And then they fully shattered, as Anna leaned outside, that same sunny smile on her face.  "Oh, you're having a slumber party, that's so cute!  Cappy you haven't been to one since that one time-"

"YES.  MOM.  THAT ONE TIME.  THAT WE AGREED NEVER TO BRING UP AGAIN."  Stiffening, Cap'n clenched his fists at his sides, his face turned away from his bandmates so they wouldn't see it flushing, but the steam wafting up from his vents gave him away regardless.  

Gently tugging on Anna's sleeve, Sweet whispered so that Cap'n couldn't hear.  "He oiled the bed didn't he?"

"No, nothing like that," she finally explained.  "My little Cappy was terrified of the dark until he was eleven, always had to have me check under the bed and in the closet for malware, or he couldn't sleep!"

"He still makes me do that sometimes," K_K laughed, not bothering to whisper, and the steam from Cap'n's vents poured out even faster.  Finally noticing the squeaks and static coming from his companion's speakers, though, K_K stopped, reaching across to pat his back.  "My hands are tired.  You wanna handle the wires while your mom and I get some milk?"

"Y-Yeah," Cap'n barely managed, after some effort.  His speech synthesizer had completely shut down, both from embarrassment and the heat building up under his shirt, and he practically had to sign to Sweet to quit laughing already, and to plug in the soldering iron, as he readied himself to start on the generator's internal circuitry.

"Where's this hook up?"  

"This spot right here," Sweet replied, pointing.  "Just watch you don't bridge the solder like last time!"

"Please, I...I know better than that!"  Sweet watched as Cap'n's hand slipped, and a thin stream of lead solder accidentally connected to the next circuit over, but resolved to say nothing, only to clean it up himself later.  Thankfully it was only the one bridge, Cap'n's grip softening as his own circuits cooled, eventually joking with Sweet again like nothing had even happened, to the speaker's relief.

—

"You think there's a guy out there called Pete Za, and every time someone calls for pizza he thinks they want him instead?"

Cap'n wasn't sure where in the hell the idea had even come from, as he watched K_K munching on their slice and playing a video game on a TV in the corner, but Sweet nodded in agreement, a smile in his eye.  "I bet he's even got a sister called Ann Chovy," he suggested, holding up a forkful of pizza and slimy little fish – no matter how many times Cap'n suggested simply using his hands, Sweet would never give up on eating his pizza with a knife and fork like an exquisitely-cultured barbarian.  Kept the grease off his gloves, he always justified it, and Cap'n shook his head, wiping his hands directly onto the bedspread underneath him.

As a guest room, Cap'n's old bedroom couldn't look more different, though considering he'd always kept it a bit of a pigsty that was probably a good thing.  His parents had changed the sheets and curtains, repainted the walls, scraped the stickers off the vanity mirror, alphabetized the bookshelf, and taken down the old movie posters, but instead of trashing them they'd framed and hung them back up properly, giving the place more of a sense of style.  Class, even.  Most of the clutter was gone, either taken to the shop with Cap'n or donated, with the rest shoved into the closet behind old clothes and keepsakes, leaving little room for what the trio had brought with them – it was only K_K who'd hung up one of their identical pairs of green pants with the reflective bars on the sides to wear the next morning, with Cap'n and Sweet merely setting their bags out in front of the closet door, not bothering to unpack.

One of the only things Cap'n had left behind from his youth were a stack of teen magazines, stuffed into the bottom of a dresser drawer, and as he ate Sweet leafed through them, morbidly curious.  Mostly he just looked at the pictures, chiseled Swatchlings and glamorous Addisons modeling all the latest fashions of several years prior, by that point more amusing than enticing, and definitely an intriguing insight into the development of the boombox sitting next to him on the bed, who glanced over nervously as he recognized each and every page.  Occasionally, though, Sweet stumbled on an interesting article, reading it out loud in the most sarcastic tone he could muster.  

"Are you a qualified kissing casanova, or a lame loveless loser?  Take our quiz to find out!"  He scanned the questions.  "Literally none of these have anything to do with kissing.  'Favorite ice cream flavor'?  Really?"

Regardless, Sweet answered them all, chuckling at his result.  "I don't even have lips and I'm apparently I'm a lip-locking love machine!"

"I'll just take your word for it," Cap'n laughed, pushing down his frustrations at never doing better than "amorously average" on that particular quiz, before something on the TV caught his attention instead.  K_K had set up their console with a Super Game Friend adapter, so Cap'n didn't have to strain to watch them play from over their shoulder. 

"Yo what are you doing," he demanded, as K_K selected the Attack command.  "Didn't you see the sparkles, it's a shiny!  You're not gonna catch it?!"

K_K just turned back to him, confused.  "Huh, is that what those mean?  I see 'em so much I don't even think about it anymore."

"Wh...What do you mean you see 'em so much?"  Cap'n watched sadly as K_K finished off the ultra-rare Digibeast, wordlessly moving on, but within seconds they stumbled into another battle, and his jaw dropped as, sure enough, their newest foe sparkled as well.

"Hey, I'll catch this one," K_K said, smiling as they selected the Catch command, "and then I'll trade it to you later, since it sounds like you really want it.  Okay?"

"Um, YES??"  Kicking himself for not bringing his own copy of the game, Cap'n cheered as they successfully captured it, sending it to a storage box filled to the brim with other rare shiny creatures, and finished off the last pizza slice, setting the empty box aside and digging through his bag for his toothbrush.

Unfortunately it'd ended up at the very bottom, and while Cap'n tossed out shirts and accessories to reach it Sweet remarked, "Did you bring your whole closet with you?"

"Hey, I mighta changed my mind in the morning, and didn't wanna get caught wearin' something clashing!"

They just shrugged.  "Why I usually wear black.  It goes with everything."  True to their word, that night Sweet had opted for a pair of black pajamas with embroidered quarter notes.  

Cap'n rolled his eyes, dashing across the hall to the bathroom once he finally located his toothbrush, but almost as soon as he'd left there was a soft knock on the still-open door, Anna announcing her presence as if the smell wafting from the plate of freshly-baked chocolate microchip cookies in her hands didn't already do so.

"I couldn't help myself," she said, holding the plate out for Sweet and K_K to examine, "You can't keep me out of the kitchen just by ordering pizza for dinner!"

Poking her head inside, she glanced around the room.  "Cappy isn't here?"

"N-No, Mrs Anna."  Immediately, Sweet shoved the magazines behind his back and sat up straight.  "He, um, should be back in a second," he explained, gleefully accepting a handful of cookies while K_K took only one.

"Not a second too late, though!"  Laughing, Cap'n appeared behind his mother in the doorway, automatically reaching for the plate, only to get a gentle swat on the hand for it.  "Yow, Mom, what gives?  I don't get one?"

She gave him a playful look, wagging her finger at him.  "Honey, you just brushed your teeth!"

"I'll brush 'em again!"  She stared him down.  "Promise."  

That was enough for Anna, who relented, letting her son take as many cookies as he wanted, and Sweet and K_K as well – the plate emptied much faster than they'd anticipated.  "It's okay, boys, I can always make more!  And maybe next time I can ask all three of you to help me out!"

"That sounds great," Sweet said through a smile, and an eyeful of crumbs – he might've filled up on spaghetti code and pizza but he always had room in his black hole stomach for dessert.  

There was one cookie remaining, but Sweet fought to keep himself from reaching for it, suddenly realizing that, once again, he'd taken much, much more than his bandmates.  "No, um, Mrs Anna, I'm fine!  You already made me fifths for lunch!"  Waving his hands guiltily, Sweet desperately tried to refuse, but Anna just wouldn't have it.

"Sweetheart," she cried out, taking one of his hands, "You don't have to worry about that!  You're our guest, and more importantly you're both the first friends my Cappy's ever had over!  We've been waiting for this for years!"  

"But..."

"Come on Sweet," Cap'n said, lightly jabbing the speaker with his shoulder, "quit bein' rude and just take the cookie!"  He shot his mother an irritated look at well, which she returned mockingly.

Sweet's expression dropped into one of pure panic at the word.  "Oh my god I'm so sorry M-Ma'am, I didn't mean to be-"

"You're not rude, Sweetie!"  Anna shot Cap'n a quick look of admonishment, which he returned mockingly, a conversation all to themselves which Sweet couldn't hope to translate.  Gently squeezing the speaker's arms, she sighed.  "I'm happy to take care of all three of you!  You, Cappy, and...Cakey, you're so quiet over there!"  Their game paused, K_K sat watching and listening, and with all eyes suddenly on them they simply shrugged.

"K_K's more the, 'words speak quieter than actions' type," Cap'n explained, and Anna nodded in understanding.

"I've noticed."  Finally, with Sweet's blessing, she took the last cookie for herself.  "Now, how about you, Honey?  Did you get enough to eat?  There's more pizza and cookies downstairs I can bring up!"

"Nah, I'm good-"

"And you've got everything else you need for your slumber party, right?  You've got enough pillows?  I know how sometimes it puts stress on your cables if you sleep on them wrong.  You look so tired, do you want an extra power cord or some fresh batteries in the morning?  Of course your old night light's already plugged in, maybe I can get you a book to read in case you can't sleep, or-"

"Mom!"  He desperately waved his hands, silencing her.  "I'm.  Fine .  Got everythin' we need, alright!?"

"Hey, I just worry so much about my special little guy!"  Cap'n blushed deeply, quickly glancing at Sweet's and K_K's snickering faces as Anna literally pinched his cheeks and kissed him on the forehead, right between his vents, which immediately started steaming once again.

"Mom, we talked about this.  Not in front of people..."  Especially not right in front of his bandmates!  Cap'n could already hear Sweet's teasing.

"Uh-huh, we had that long talk when you were 13 and agreed that I'd stop babying you the day you got married.  And I don't see any marriage shoes on those feet yet, mister!"  For a moment she stared at him, smiling mischievously, but then just sighed, hugging Cap'n and patting his back to try and stop him from sputtering.  "Oh, I'm just teasing!  I know you've got your 'image' to keep up, but I don't get to mother you anymore, and it's killing me!  Your dad and I'll be up a little longer if you three do need anything at all, alright?"  

"A-Alright."

She turned to Sweet, and K_K in turn.  "That's for you too.  Good night, guys, don't let the computer bugs bite!"  Fetching the empty plate, she hurried back downstairs, letting the trio settle in for the night.

As Cap'n returned from brushing his teeth a second time he flopped over onto his bed next to Sweet, groaning, and just as he feared, he heard the latter's staticky voice whisper right into his ear.  "Her special little guy..."

"What, you...you jealous, Sweet?"

"No!  Me, jealous? I just..."  Huffing, Sweet repositioned himself to turn away from Cap'n, the fiery look in his eye no longer visible.  "I'm not jealous."

"Sure."  Cap'n yawned, blinking at the ceiling above him.  When he was a kid he used to stare up at the rippled plaster without his glasses, the blurry fan strokes forming shapes and setting his CPU in motion as it tried to put them together.  Sometimes he'd see faces and figures among them, sometimes canyons and craters, sometimes soft silk, the shadows seeming to reverse and poke inward.  It was hypnotic, in a way, the best way to sort out his thoughts and put them into words.  "Listen, ignore my mom for me, alright?  She's always been...like this."

"Like what?"  Sweet tilted his head, confused.  "Kissing and hugging you, worrying about you, wanting you to be happy, not expecting you to do anything in return for it all?  She really loves you, Cap."  He sighed sadly.  "More than most mothers, I think."

K_K agreed, his game forgotten as he clambered up onto the bed, sandwiching Cap'n between himself and Sweet with a long arm looped around them both.  "She's so nice, and bakes really good cookies!  I really wish I had a mom like her..."

"What are you tryin' to do, guilt-trip me?  I know all that!"  He reached up and pinched the bridge of his glasses, sneakily wiping away an oily tear that he hoped the other two didn't notice.  "Just wish she'd stop treatin' me like I'm still a little kid..."

Sweet's speaker narrowed, as they squinted over at him.  "So ask her to stop embarrassing you?"

Cap'n's voice glitched in shock, and he squeaked, "I can't say that to my mom!  She'd blow a gasket!  Literally!"

"So it's better to just sit there and sulk?"  Sweet wished the lights were off so he could see if Cap'n's blushing could actually light up the room in a blue glow, like the night light set up in the corner.  

"Hey, Cap'n?  Are you more embarrassed of your mom, or of telling her you're embarrassed of her?"  K_K shifted uncomfortably; the trio normally slept on a king-sized bed back at the junk shop, barely big enough for their long legs to fit, but the CD player's feet dangled off the bottom of Cap'n's old full-sized mattress, and the rest of them wasn't faring much better, having to scrunch up to keep from bashing their handle against the headboard.  Looking longingly at the pause screen still on the TV, they fought the urge to leave Cap'n there on the bed, but thankfully he did it for them, huffing as he jumped to his feet and paced a few times, making Sweet laugh as he channeled some of their energy.

"I'm not...that's..."  He groaned, stealing one last glance up at the ceiling, one last thought left unprocessed.  Damn it, K_K was right, as usual.  "Alright, alright.  I'll...I'll tell her.  But if it breaks her heart it's on both of you!"

Taken aback, Sweet scoffed, shooing him out of the room.  "Grow up already, Cap!"

"I plan to," he grumbled, heading down the hall to his parents' room, a dim telltale glow spilling from underneath the door. 

Sighing, Sweet tossed a pillow down onto the floor near K_K's console, snuggling into it as they returned to their game.  "You know, K_K, other than sleeping on the floor this whole slumber party thing...isn't any different than what we do every night."

K_K giggled.  "Yeah, it's like we have a slumber party every night!"

"We do!"  Craning his neck to watch him play, Sweet cried out in surprise as he ran directly into yet another sparkling creature.  "Hey, K_K, can you save me one of these too?"  

K_K nodded, going right for the Catch command.

---

Rapping his knuckles on the door a couple of times, Cap'n asked, "Yo Dad, is Mom in there?"  Slowly, he cracked the door and peered inside the dark room, lit in a soft purple by his glow-in-the-dark father's case as Edward sat up in bed against a pillow, reading a book by his own light. 

"Not yet, I think she's still turning off the oven."

"Thanks."  Cap'n moved to close the door, but turned back, taking a second look at the book's title.  "...Doesn't Mom hate you readin' that kinda stuff before bed?  'Cause you get weird the next morning?"

Ed's glow intensified slightly as he blushed, and he closed and shoved his copy of 'The Vibrant World of Passenger Aircraft' out of sight behind the nearby nightstand. "Yeah, I know.  Don't tell her I just snuck a peek?"

Giving his father a thumbs-up, Cap'n closed the door and headed for the stairs, only to meet Anna just as he reached the bottom.

"Oh, Cappy!  Sorry, I just put the cookies away for tomorrow, if you want more though I can-"

"Uh, nah, Mom, I'm good.  It's just...I wanted to ask..."  He sighed, deflating, and Anna led him over to the couch, gripping his arm comfortingly as if she sensed his circuits seizing, his persona sloughing off onto the floor as he pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead, looking at her with the same gaze he'd had since he was a little CD player.

"Look, I get that...you wanna do stuff for me, keep babyin' me and all, but like...It's a bit much sometimes, ya know?  'Specially in front of...you know!"

"I don't think I do?"  She watched as Cap'n struggled to find the words, fidgeting as he weaved his fingers between each other over and over until she finally gripped one of his hands tightly, putting a stop to it.  "What do you mean, Honey?"

"I mean, like..."  What did he mean?  Suddenly Cap'n wished he'd come up with it all before he'd come downstairs, and he replaced his glasses back over his eyes, hiding them from view as the gears in his head turned.  "Mom...I think we gotta make a new deal."

Anna blinked a few times.  She'd never liked Cap'n's prescription sunglasses – it had been Edward who'd finally given in and bought them after months of begging, without consulting his wife, a family controversy for months afterward – and she struggled to read his expression with his eyes completely hidden from view.  

Seeing her confusion, though, Cap'n explained, clearing his throat nervously.  "The one about me gettin' married, I mean.  Think maybe we gotta set a new time when you'll back off and start treatin' me like I'm...like I'm all grown up."

"When were you thinking, Cappy?"

"How about...when I move out on my own."

Again, she blinked, surprised.  "But, Honey, you've already moved out!  Even took all your things to the junk shop."

"Exactly."  

The two were silent for a few moments, Cap'n's soul pounding in his chest, trying his best to study his mom's reaction from safely behind his glasses.  He braced himself for disappointment, or tears, or any sign of rejection, but instead Anna smiled, squeezing him arm tighter.  "So, no more embarrassing you in front of your friends, and no more calling you my darling little Cappy or my special little guy or my little Pogcap?"

"Definitely not," he replied, cringing, making Anna laugh.  "...Pogcap?  Don'tcha mean Pogchamp?"

"I thought it worked better with your new name."

Cap'n couldn't help but crack up at his mom's creativity.  "Alright, maybe you can use that one sometimes."

"No, I get it, Honey.  I might've laid it on pretty thick tonight on purpose, just trying to tease you while I still could."  She giggled.  "You might even be more grown up than I am by now!"

"Not if you ask Sweet."

"Oh, he'll come around.  I am, and I know your dad already has."  Sighing, she released his arm, opting to pat his hand a few times as she stood, a mischievous smile on her face.  "Hey, you didn't put your toothbrush away did you?"

He'd left it out on the sink, just like when he was a kid.  Old habits really did die hard.

"I made another batch of cookies as a surprise for tomorrow, with peppermint pieces in with the chocolate chips.  Just like you used to love when you were little!  Of course, if you're too grown up now, I understand..."

"Oh heck no Mom, hand those over!"  Following her back into the kitchen like a puppy, he greedily shoved one right into his mouth the instant Anna pulled the cover off the plate, making her laugh, gently wiping a few stray crumbs off his casing.  "Guess you can baby me one more night.  Tomorrow mornin', though..."

Anna nodded, "Tomorrow morning.  I'll even let you three make breakfast, if you want!  Just make sure you clean up after yourselves."  Cap'n agreed wholeheartedly.

After brushing his teeth a third and final time for the night Cap'n peered into his room, seeing K_K and Sweet curled up next to the TV.  Sweet could barely keep their eye open, gripping their pillow tight, and K_K wasn't much better, wobbling in place as they stared at the screen, fighting back a yawn that eventually broke out regardless.  "Cap'n, I think we're ready to sleep now."

He smiled, yanking the blankets off his bed and setting up a little nest for himself next to the console and Sweet, who sleepily turned it off once K_K finished saving their game.  Pulling the speaker and their pillow into his side and letting K_K bury their face into his shirt, awkwardly curling their long legs around his body so that they could fit underneath one of the smaller blankets, he sighed, taking off his glasses and staring up at the blurry ceiling.  "Hey, guys?"

"Yeah?"

"The floor sucks.  Let's use the bed."  The other two couldn't agree more.

Chapter Text

"Well...moment of truth I guess."  

Sweet stared down at the completed generator, ready for testing.  A long cord led from the device to K_K's cell phone, sparkling in the patio lights from the dozens of tiny multicolored rhinestones and glittery stickers stuck all over its case but its screen remained completely black after they'd forgotten to charge it, making it the ideal candidate.  

Humming curiously next to Sweet, Cap'n studied their handiwork closely as well.  "You know it's gonna need a fuel source, right?"

"Oh don't worry, we got plenty of fuel!"  Laughing coolly to themself Sweet shoved a handful of their useless Nubert Dollars into a slot on the side, and instantly the generator whirred to life, as did K_K's cell phone, its screen lighting up with a battery charging logo.  "Success!!"

"Alright!"  Holding out his hand for Sweet to slap him a low-five, Cap'n glanced over at their two other completed scrap projects, the finished pinwheels sitting out on the painted metal table.  In the end he'd decided on a more abstract design for his airbrushing, merely finding random leftover generator parts to spray over the table surface, and from a distance the outlines of screws, bolts, hinges, plugs, and even a few screwdriver bits all blended together into a kaleidoscope of color.

But, the table was a secondary concern.  He pulled out the contact details for the pinwheel customer, confirming something he'd noticed the night before.  "So, this lady's store is in town, literally a couple blocks away.  You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

"No, I'm not." 

Sweet's speakers vibrated anxiously, as they had all morning.  The day before he hadn't been so on edge, simply focusing on scrap work and their little vacation away from the shop, but things were different the day before a concert, especially an illegal one.

The trio hadn't practiced a single note all week, and time was quickly running out.  Sweet tapped their foot anxiously, getting faster and faster as the minutes ticked away.

"Cap, we need to get our sound studio up and running as soon as possible!  We gotta get our gear ready, go over the setlist, maybe I dunno, actually play a song or two to make sure we don't completely blow it on stage?  We got only one day left to make this show-"

"Don't say 'perfect.'"

"-Perfect!"  Cap'n facepalmed, leaning against the side of the house, next to the kitchen window.  

After a few moments he heard a light tapping on the glass, his father's face "peering" out at him, but with a hand covering his eyes.  "Cap'n, you ready to show us your masterpiece?"

Shoot, he'd completely forgotten!  "Oh, yeah, come on out and see!  You're gonna love it!"  Cap'n was indeed proud of the table he'd spent all morning on, even taking his toast outside to eat while painting, despite Anna's warning that he would eat nothing but paint doing it.  But, true to her word the night before, she let her special grown-up guy make the decision for himself, as poor a decision as it turned out to be (who knew paint tasted so awful?), and even let Sweet and K_K convince her to make it an official scrap commission with paperwork and everything, for a total fee of...five dollars.  Family discount, Cap'n said.

Ed emerged first, his eyes still covered but expertly navigating the steps regardless, but Anna needed to be more careful, least of all thanks to K_K's heavy hands over her eyes, the CD player giggling excitedly as they guided her outside for the reveal.  

All at once, they regained their sight and gasped as they saw the finished project, with Cap'n gleefully posing and shouting, "Ta-da!!  Whaddaya think?"

"Cappy, it looks wonderful!"

"Yeah, it's so...vibrant!  Reminds me of the stippling on the tail of the After Burner 4800..."

"Ed."

"Or maybe the wingflaps of the BFA-3000?  Both excellent design inspirations!"

" Edward ."  He'd been at it all morning, nearly driving Anna up the wall, and she pinched between her forehead vents, sighing.  "Our son's project is not an airplane."

"Oh, sorry..."  He sheepishly scratched the back of his neck.  "I didn't mean to bring that up, just happened!  That old table looks great, Cap'n, almost brand-new, and I really can't believe you had all this stuff just waiting in the wings to paint onto it!  Your mom and I are feeling sky-high about all this!"

With the switch to puns Anna looked over at her son, pleading.  "Cappy, please tell me where he hid the airplane book?"  But, Cap'n's lips were sealed, he demonstrated as he mimed zipping them shut and gave his father a thumbs-up, which Edward returned.

"Is my phone ready?" K_K asked, kneeling down to check, only to frown as they saw the battery still only at 3%.  

Gently patting their head just below their handle, Sweet reassured them, "It's gonna take a while, even with this thing's output.  In the meantime we can do something else, like..."

"Delivering our scrap commission!"  

Sweet glared at Cap'n.  "No, I was thinking more about tomorrow's concert?"  Only after the word escaped Sweet's speaker did he catch himself.  "Oh.  Oops."

It was the first either of Cap'n's parents had heard about it, the trio careful not to mention anything to them the day before, and Anna smiled, excited.  "Why didn't you three say you had a concert tomorrow!  We would've made sure we were in the front row, and brought snacks backstage, and WAIT YOU'RE HAVING A WHAT?!"

Completely ignoring her expression switching to that of someone about to have a system crash, K_K innocently smiled up at her.  "Yeah, it's in an old abandoned warehouse in a dangerous part of the city!  And we invited a ton of people to see us play real music right under Queen's nose!"  Edward had to catch Anna lest she faint.

"What he MEANS is," Cap'n hurriedly cut in, "We got a setlist and venue that will NOT raise any alarms with Queen, least not until we book it outta there.  We got this all planned out!"

"We did have this all planned out, until..."  Scooping up the remaining pieces of scrap into boxes, Sweet sighed, a growl seeping into his voice as he began mumbling to himself.  "Damn it, I didn't even bring my guitar to work on that one solo.  Those high Es are gonna sound awful if I can't get my fingering right."

"Sweet, how the heck you gonna practice without makin' any music?"

"It's an electric, an adapter for my headphones would take me five minutes.  I got all the parts right here!"  He glared over at Cap'n.  "And besides, we technically don't have to play any notes."

"Just how ya hold it?

"Yeah.  More or less."

"Lame!"  The boombox hopped up onto his newly-painted table, passing the pinwheels to K_K lest he accidentally sit on one of the sharp metal pieces.  "Sweet, relax, the show ain't going anywhere!  We got all night to practice our set!"

"The show not going anywhere is what I'm worried about! "

"You know I can't keep a young, single mademoysel waiting!"

"Cap she was in her 60s, and mentioned she had a wife at one point."

Cap'n stared down at them, dejected, shaking as he tried to coax his speech synthesizer into providing a good comeback, but K_K tapped him on the shoulder, grinning.  "Hey, you think there's a bakery on the way there?"

"Oh...yeah, th-there's definitely a couple!  This is my home turf, K_K, I'll show ya around!"

"I really want a Tasque claw, or maybe a lemon tart, does anyone have those?"

"Cakey, if you want a treat..."  Glancing back at Anna K_K held up a finger to his lips to shush her, winking, and she eventually nodded in understanding, not saying another word.

"There's a place that's supposed to have some killer tarts on the same street as the client!  And more importantly..."  He turned to Sweet, smirking.  "That's two against one!  Looks like we're headin' out on the town!"

"...Fine, only because K_K wants to."  The speaker crossed his arms, an annoyed look in his eye.  "I suppose I can rearrange the setlist on the way, since K_K did suggest adding a little legitimate...ugh...noise music, at the beginning."

Checking the time, Ed's eyes widened in alarm.  "Annie and I both need to take off to work, we can airdrop you guys closer to downtown.  And if you need to fly back home to pick up anything here's the spare key!"  Digging through a hiding spot behind the nearby air conditioning unit and tossing out a few old books on locomotive identification and deep sea submersibles, making Anna smirk knowingly, he pulled out the key and passed it to Cap'n, who right away slipped it securely into his pocket.  "And...you three, please be careful talking about music and concerts.  I know you'll be alright, you've avoided any turbulence with Queen so far, I just want you to make a safe landing this time!"

Anna scowled, finally reaching her limit.  "Edward I'm getting a divorce, and remarrying you only when you come back down to earth."

"Oh Honey, if you wanted to renew our vows it was so plane simple to just ask!"  But, laughing, he promised to stop for the rest of the day, having gotten it out of his system.  Mostly.

—

"Huh, I thought this town felt a little familiar."  Looking up and down the street, Sweet hopped excitedly.  "I hit this place to hang posters for our very first gig!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, K_K!  I know I put one there..."  They pointed to a nearby street lamp, and then a few blank spots along the fences across the road.  "And there!  And I even asked at the library desk if I could hang one inside, if I'd only known it was your father working that day!  In fact..."

They'd been dropped off just outside the library, Edward heading inside to work the front desk as usual.  Sweet had brought a few extra fliers for their newest gig in the city with him, and with Ed's approval he tacked one up onto the community board just inside the double doors, right underneath the original which had been carefully framed and hung in a spot of honor, skirting the laws a little but so long as masking tape temporarily covered the glass over the band's name and faces to anonymize them it made Sweet smile proudly with his eye.  

"Might as well get the word out any way we can.  I'll hang the rest on the way!"

"Hand me a few," K_K offered, taping fliers high up in extra-visible spots along the route, including on the door of the tart shop, with permission of course.  Just because they were rebels didn't mean they couldn't be polite.

As they bit into their snack K_K's face suddenly fell, making Cap'n glance over.  "What's the matter, K_K?  Is it not sweet enough?"

"No, it's...okay."  Disappointed, they sat the partially-eaten lemon tart onto a napkin in front of them.  With their bandmate staring in concern, though, eventually they relented, "It's too sweet.  Not enough lemon."

"Damn..."  Cap'n was suddenly glad he hadn't tipped.  The strawberry tarts he'd ordered also turned out to be a bit more sour than he'd anticipated, so he simply swapped his food with K_K's, an arrangement which lifted their spirits again right away.  "This place really doesn't live up to the hype.  We can track down some better snacks later."

"Cap, we need to get back to the shop right after this or we're not gonna be ready for tomorrow!"  Already Sweet had dozens of handwritten pages of four-second song names and lyrics scattered across the table in front of him, some of which he'd scribbled out and rewritten and scratched out again, too absorbed in the work to touch the pair of pineapple tarts sitting out next to him on a plate.  "There's no time for more snacks!"

"'Course there is, always time for snacks!"  Curiously, Cap'n reached over towards one of Sweet's tarts, seeing if the busy speaker would notice him sneaking a bite, but without even looking he jealously slapped him away.  "Listen, Sweet, I mean it, loosen up a little.  What's the worst that'll happen if we put on a bad show?"

He slammed his hands onto the table, standing up in his chair.  "The end of Cyber World as we know it!!" 

"Alright, alright, dial down the volume a little.  You and I both know that ain't gonna happen."  Not least, because Cyber World had already changed to something they didn't recognize – while Cap'n was out without a CD loaded he usually kept tuned into the radio, his antenna hidden underneath his cap, to keep track of the chatter on the airwaves, and even if the signal was fuzzy every day things only got worse.  That morning's newest law prohibited socks with sandals, surely cramping the style of dads throughout Cyber World, and for a brief moment Cap'n considered calling Edward to warn him. 

So, it wasn't that Cap'n didn't believe Sweet, he just knew that one single concert wasn't going to make much of a dent in it all.

"Well...it feels like it!"  Sweet sat back down, cradling their head in their hands as they got back to work.  "K_K, what do you think of moving 'Noise Music' up first, since we do sample some harsh noise and static, as a little fakeout, and follow that up with 'Cool Beat' and then 'Cyber Battle,' without the keyboard solo?"

Finishing off the last sour strawberry tart, K_K just smiled.  "I don't mind either way!  Just tell me what to play and I'll play all four seconds of it!  Or maybe, we can make up a new song that's eight seconds long?"

"K_K, don't encourage him, that's-"

"Genius!!"

"-gonna make Sweet go even harder on all this," Cap'n finished, facepalming.  Sweet no longer even minded as Cap'n snatched up that pineapple tart to get the taste of too-sweet lemon out of his mouth, sparkles in the speaker's eye.

"What are we doing, just rehashing our old songs over again, we gotta show our audience we're not just still playing music, but still creating it too!  No matter how Queen tries to put a limiter on us!!"  Sweet hopped and paced around the table and pumped his arms excitedly as he spoke, his attention anywhere but his remaining tart, which K_K snatched up to munch on while they listened.  The place's pineapple tarts turned out to be just right, not too sweet and not too sour, a much better taste than the lemon or strawberry ones.  "Besides, our old stuff would get caught by Queen's content filters right away.  Playing an all new set...she won't be able to touch us unless she was right there in the room hearing it herself!"

"Alright, so, not just settin' up a whole guerilla concert in a day but also comin' up with an entire new setlist?  Sounds perfectly reasonable," Cap'n drawled out, every word dripping with sarcasm.

Sweet reluctantly agreed.  "There's no way we can come up with one new song in just a day, much less a dozen, even if we were back at our sound studio like we're supposed to be. "  He gave Cap'n a momentary glare.  "But, K_K, you said you always wanted to try a little improv, maybe Cap and I can just follow your lead!"  He giggled a little, at the new plans flowing through his CPU.  "I've always wanted to try being in a jam band, myself, never thought I'd get the chance!  And speakin' of jam..."  He reached for the plate at his side, his speaker blinking a few times as he discovered it completely empty.  "...Where the hell'd my food go?!"

"Oh, uh..."  Sweating, Cap'n and K_K both smiled innocently, trying to act natural, but Sweet saw through it right away. 

"...Seriously?!"

"Come on, just order more!"

"Can you get me an extra," K_K added, licking their lips and, defeated, Sweet made his way back to the sales Addison at the counter.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Yeah."  They shot another ice-cold glare towards the the table.  "Since a certain couple of CD players saw fit to eat all my pineapple tarts, I think I'll order a few-"

"Hold up, Sweet!"  Catching a stray radio signal, Cap'n tuned in, raising both his antenna and his volume for the whole shop to hear.

It was an important broadcast straight from Queen's mansion, yet another new, no-doubt-ridiculous law.

"Starting Today The Following Tart Flavors Will Not Be Allowed (Because They're Gross):"  Queen's trademark monotone voice proceeded to list off a truly baffling amount of flavors, from pineapple, to apple, to pen, to orange, to cyan, to smoked bacon and pea soup, and with each one the cashier dutifully pulled out a marker and crossed it off the menu board, eventually leaving Sweet with very, very few options once the broadcast concluded.

"You...You can't be serious," he stammered, scanning the board, so many of the different possibilities he'd had his eye on eliminated.  "She literally JUST made the announcement!  You still have all the ingredients you need for all these flavors right in the kitchen!"  He leaned over the counter, a desperate look in his speaker, alarming the cashier.  "No one's gonna know!!"

"I'm sorry sir, it's Queen's law."

Sadly, Sweet turned to his bandmates, to help him decide between the final two flavors.

"Do the strawberry," K_K suggested, "they're super sour!"

"Nah, get the lemon!  They're so sweet my teeth are hurtin'!"

Looking between the two of them and their uncharacteristic orders, Sweet sighed, their voice quivering.  "You both finally lost your damn minds, haven't you?"

—

Almost as soon as K_K walked into the small electronics store a familiar face at the counter recognized them, and even called to the CD player by name.  "K_K!  I didn't think you'd follow me all the way out here for my brownie recipe!"

"Hi!  Uh...Diode?"

The pink Addison woman smiled patiently.  "It's Faraday, sweetie.  Di's in the back."  

"Sorry.  I'm bad with faces."  It was true, sometimes K_K even mistook Sweet for Cap'n and vice-versa, despite the two not looking remotely alike save for both being half their height, meaning K_K could rarely see much more than the top of their heads anyway.  Just like most people.  But, Faraday was three-quarters of K_K's height, meaning they didn't have to look down too far at her as they pulled the finished pinwheels out of their bag, mirroring her grin as she clapped her hands with delight.

"Oh, then those two were the friends you told me about at the party!"  Giggling, she motioned upward to the shop's high ceiling, which K_K had only just noticed as they walked in and didn't need to duck, but finally they saw all the different pinwheels hanging down, twirling in the breeze as the shop's overactive air conditioning unit blasted them.  "I never had time to fix it when we first opened, we used to just cover the noise with music but after it was banned Di and I thought, why not make the best of it?  When I saw the ones you three made out in front of your scrap shop I thought they'd go perfect in our collection!"

"They will!"  Happily, K_K hung their work in a few empty spots across the ceiling, letting them spin, to Faraday's approval.  

"So, I think I owe you guys some payment...and a brownie recipe," she laughed, scribbling it down and passing it to K_K along with the money.  They were happy to handle the sale, even if they needed some extra time to carefully count out the cash and write up a receipt, seeing Sweet and Cap'n occupied elsewhere.

"Sweet, we're here on business.  And I don't just mean scrap business," Cap'n said, wiggling his eyebrows seductively towards the counter.  But, busy as she was with the transaction, Faraday didn't even notice, to his disappointment.

"I know!!  But, just look at these..."  The speaker was utterly fascinated by the variety of tools and electrical devices on the shelves, disregarding their scrap commission and even, briefly, the concert constantly at the back of their thoughts.  "I've only seen some of these parts in magazines!"

"Well let's grab a few while we're here!"  But, then, Cap'n looked down at the prices.  "On second thought..."

He elbowed Sweet, pulling him behind a shelf out of earshot.  "We can hit the dumpster behind the shop on the way out, see if anything's still salvageable."

Sweet nodded in agreement, then led the way back to the counter, smiling with their eye.  "Thanks for handling that, K_K, you know how I get when I see a full set of three-way electron accelerators!  We had no idea you two were friends!"

"Yeah!  She lives on Format street, Cyber Fields West line, third stop from us!"  K_K grinned proudly.  "We met at a party on Wednesday."

"Oh, okay!"

"K_K told us all about your plan to have a secret concert," Faraday said with a wink, "and invited my wife and I to swing by!"

Sweet missed that entirely, taking an extra second to process what K_K had said earlier, then looked up at the CD player, carefully studying their face.  "...You went to a party on Wednesday?"

"Yeah."

"On 1024 Format Street?  With a bunch of Addisons, and Werewires, and hosted by that one Plugboy in a bowler hat who messed with us at the bakery?"

"Uh-huh."

Sweet nearly fell over in shock. "You actually went to that jackass' pro-Queen party?!"

"Already said yeah," the CD player laughed, but the look in Sweet's speaker was anything but cheerful.  It was one of heartbreak, of betrayal, of a full system breakdown in progress.  Sweet shuddered in place, clenching his fists as his speakers warbled, his speech synthesizer struggling to make a single sound.  

"K...Cakes..."  His voice crackled as his speakers could barely handle their own volume peaking.  "Wh-Why would you...How could you?!"

Sweet's change in demeanor completely soaring over their handle, K_K simply shrugged, their smile never dropping.  "I took the bus."

"That's not what I meant!!"  

Behind the speaker's back, Cap'n motioned for Faraday to follow him elsewhere in the shop, letting the two argue in privacy.

"K_K, we're rebels!!   Queen is our enemy!!   Her supporters' parties aren't for us!"

"But they didn't have any problem with me," K_K pointed out, finally starting to catch onto the fact that Sweet was upset.  And, worse, that he was upset with them.   "Everyone there was really nice!"

"That doesn't matter, K_K!  You got lucky!  If they knew who you were, if they hurt you..."  

"They weren't gonna hurt me."

"You don't know that!  You never know that!!  Anyone could report you to Queen, could send the Werewires after you, you can't trust anyone!"

K_K knew that, they'd met at least one Plugboy at the party who would've done exactly what Sweet was suggesting, had he been on-duty.  But, they'd seen for themself, those people were fewer and further between than Sweet thought.  "Faraday's cool.  I can trust her."

"No you can't!!"

"Sweet..."  Gently laying his hands onto Sweet's shoulders, K_K locked his gaze into Sweet's eye, seeing and feeling him trembling beneath them, more in fear than in anger.  "You don't think everyone's gonna hurt you, do you?"

They paused, staring up into K_K's calm smile.  What kind of a question was that?  Were they serious?  But, as Sweet saw, the look in the taller robot's golden pupils was indeed genuine, their hands on their shoulders firm.  "Yes."

If Queen would, anyone would.

"Do you think I'd hurt you?"

"...You already have."  Abruptly, Sweet turned, brushing K_K aside as he stomped toward the door.

"Sweet, are you leaving?"

"I'm not going to stand here arguing with a traitor!"  The speaker slammed the door behind him, signaling the end to his tantrum.

Another Addison poked her head through a curtain behind the counter, leading to the back of the shop.  "What the heck was all that?!"  

"Don't worry, Diode, there's no trouble!"  Faraday emerged from behind the shelves and hurried to K_K's side, seeing oily tears beginning to stream down their green plastic.  Cap'n soon followed as well, wincing and rubbing a bright red hand-shaped mark on his cheek but his sole concern at the moment was his bandmate.

"I'm not a traitor," K_K whimpered, sniffling.

"No one said you are, K_K!"

"Sweet just did."

"Well they're wrong," Cap'n softly reassured them, taking and squeezing their hand tight.  "Why don'tcha tell me what all happened at that party?  And your friends can help ya out if you need it."  Despite the offer, K_K hesitated, and Diode passed him a tissue to wipe the oil from their face.  "I ain't gonna blow up on ya like that, K_K.  Promise.  Sweet, he's got a real black-and-white view of the whole situation, but I see grays just fine."

"...Okay."  Sure, Sweet wore a lot of black, but wasn't his casing gray?  And did Cap'n need to go to the eye doctor again if he was having trouble with colors?  But, regardless, K_K sat himself onto the counter and walked Cap'n through the events of that night as best they could remember, with the Addison couple filling in the gaps.  

"Seriously?  There were that many rebels at a pro-Queen meetup?"

"Well...I don't know if that many would call themselves that, it's a little too dangerous these days," Faraday clarified.  "Even outside the weekly meetups, though, you three would be surprised how many friends you really have!  Especially in the Addison community, we might come off a little competitive sometimes but we really do stick together when times get tough."

"My uncle got in trouble just after the music ban," Diode added, nodding, "he works at a copy shop in the city, and loved to play this one band, but then Queen locked him up the day she announced it and his favorite musician customer stopped coming in entirely, he's pretty sure she wired him.  So now most of the clan's got it out for her, in secret, of course!"  Cap'n blinked; maybe it was time to finally pay the old Addison another visit, to let him know he was alright if nothing else.

"I hate everyone fighting," K_K mumbled, his sobs slowly subsiding.  "I just thought that, if Queen and her friends only knew how nice we are, and Sweet knew how nice they are, we wouldn't have to..."

"It's such a nice thought, isn't it K_K," Faraday said, patting the robot's shoulder.  "We wish more people would try to give each other the benefit of the doubt like that too, but it's way easier said than done."

"Yeah..."  K_K had seen that firsthand countless times, people jumping to conclusions based on nothing but their own opinions.  Just like how Sweet had jumped to a conclusion about them.  "Even Queen probably thinks her new laws are helping people, I think.  There's nobody really bad in Cyber World, just maybe a little confused."

"Just scared of the way things are, right?"  Cap'n couldn't blame them, the way he himself turned and ran at the first sign of danger.  But, then, he wasn't nearly as brave as K_K, going right into the Tasque's den without a thought for their own safety, as foolish a move as it was.  Not even thinking about the consequences if they ran into someone who did wish them harm, what would happen if they were followed back to the shop and the rest of their rebel band.  

Cap'n ultimately couldn't decide if K_K or Sweet were right no matter how much he tried to process it, both of them having good points.  Maybe they were both right.  Maybe they were both wrong.  But, until the argument was resolved somehow, the Sweet Cap'n Cakes were in trouble, because one thing stood out to Cap'n as fact, without another side to look at or doubts to raise:  The three of them needed each other.  

They needed Sweet, and Sweet needed them, especially when he was pissed-off and acting irrationally in an unfamiliar town with Queen's forces around every corner, just waiting for him to make a wrong move.

Coming to the same conclusion as Cap'n, K_K stood again, thanking Faraday and Diode for their kind words, and the brownie recipe.  "We need to go get Sweet now.  See you tomorrow!"

"Good luck," Faraday replied, waving them off.  "We'll bring plenty of brownies for the whole crowd," she added with a wink.

—

"God, what an idiot!!"  Sweet kicked a lamppost, swearing as he gripped his foot in pain, lost his balance, and fell right over onto the sidewalk, all in the span of a few seconds.  Of everyone, perhaps he was the biggest idiot of them all.

He'd always looked up to K_K, and so did Cap'n, with good reason.  K_K was upbeat, funny, brilliant in their own way, and most importantly Sweet's best friend – he'd never willingly call Cap'n that, if only out of spite.  Sweet had thought the CD player would always be on the right side, on his side, so what right did they have to turn on him like that?  To give Queen the benefit of the doubt?

Sweet saw all the signs, even if he denied them at first.  Going out to ride the bus all day instead of funding the rebellion.  Asking to incorporate noise music into their set.  Trying to stop Sweet from fighting off a pro-Queen heckler.  It was all there, he just refused to believe it, refused to believe that his best friend could sympathize with the enemy.  That K_K didn't understand what they were fighting so hard for.

As Sweet stared up at the post they noticed something that'd come loose when they'd kicked it, thin and papery, floating in the air before it finally plunged down, landing onto the speaker's face.  It was a concert flier, one of the ones K_K had taped high off the ground, too high for most people to even see, and evidently not secured very well if all it took to send it flying was a weak kick.  Growling, Sweet ripped the flier in half, suppressing a sob.

Damn it, he was such an idiot.  He was the one who'd gotten angry.  He was the one who'd blown up, and turned his back on K_K when they probably needed him most.  He was the one who couldn't see his best friend, his bandmate, past everything.

Sweet was angry, even if it was ultimately more at himself and at the rest of Cyber World than at K_K.  But, what could he do with that anger, besides rip the flier up further, shredding it to tiny pieces, and seek out the rest of them all the way back down the main road and do the same?  It wasn't like he could blast music to calm his nerves, it wasn't like he could eat his problems away unless he wanted strawberries or lemons, it wasn't like he could go on a crypto shopping spree, it wasn't like he could wear a blue hoodie or socks and sandals or storm right into Queen's mansion and open his mouth and scream.  Well...Sweet had no mouth but he could scream, at least, and he did so, smashing his fist against a nearby wall and sending shredded paper bits flying as his sound blasts drew stares up and down the block.

Cap'n had been wrong.  It absolutely was the end of Cyber World as Sweet knew it, with everything falling apart around him.

"Sweet?"

Pressing his face into the wall he screamed again, and again, trying his best to drown out his own thoughts, the sobs wracking his frame.  

"Yo, emo boy!  Lighten up will ya?"

Finally, Sweet turned around, blushing, as he recognized Cap'n's voice behind him, seeing the boombox standing there like he'd seen nothing, with an equally-unfazed K_K at his side.  In particular, K_K still had that calm, concerned smile they'd had at the electronics shop, and Sweet huffed, disgusted, ignoring them as he gave Cap'n his full attention.

"I'm punk, Cap, not emo.  There's a difference."  Wiping their speaker they glanced at Cap'n's face, admiring his 'new look.'  "...Damn, what the hell did you say to deserve that?"

"All I said was I like MILFS like her!  Mighty Intelligent Ladies with Firm handShakes!"  He rubbed his cheek again, as a fresh twinge of pain shot through the mark.  "Maybe I shoulda actually said that last part, though."

Sweet facepalmed.  

"Anyways, s'not important.  You gonna let K_K apologize to ya already?"  Cap'n pointed behind the speaker, and he finally turned, seeing K_K waving silently, harboring no resentment towards Sweet for the frigid welcome.

"Apologize?"  For a moment, Sweet almost let himself get suckered in by the CD player's innocent act, but then remembered what they'd been arguing about in the first place.  "W-Why should I?  I don't want to be friends with anyone who likes Queen!"

"I don't like Queen," K_K said matter-of-factly.  "I just went to a party.  I didn't mean for you to get mad about it."

Offended, Sweet stomped and steamed, making K_K jump back in surprise, not anticipating such a response.  "Mad?  Who's mad?  I'm not mad!"

"Oh, good!  I was really-"

"I'm furious!!  I don't even know why you'd bother to apologize, when you'd do something so stupid in the first place!"

"I thought it was a good idea."

"Well it wasn't!  The three of us discussed it and said it wasn't!"

"I didn't say it wasn't.  You and Cap'n did, I just watched."  Their CD drive whirring, K_K thought for a second.  "And I think you said going to spy on them was the bad idea?  You never said anything about just going and having fun!"

"Aaaaaargh!!"  Seeing Sweet about to smash his speaker right into the wall again Cap'n caught him by the arm, which only served to send Sweet's searing glare right into Cap'n's soul instead.

Shit.

The argument was going nowhere, once again.  Sweet was being his usual bullheaded self, frustrated and desperate to take it out on whoever was closest (which, thanks to his intervention, was Cap'n at that particular moment), and K_K wasn't helping matters at all, seemingly choosing the exact answers to rile him up further.  Panicking, Cap'n tried to think of a way to defuse things, fast, in order to save his own ass if nothing else.  

K_K was always the one who'd mediate whenever he and Sweet ended up in an argument like that, so if they were in his place what would they do?  What would they say?

Most likely, something unexpected, out of the blue, catching the two of them completely off-guard – thankfully Cap'n had always been good at thinking on his feet!  Looking around, he realized where they'd ended up, and looped his arms around Sweet's shoulders and K_K's waist, pulling them along with him.

"Come on guys, I gotta show you this.  One of my favorite spots in the whole town!"  

"Cap?  We're in the middle of something here?!"

But Cap'n hurried, lest his companions' vitriol turn back to each other, leading them to a nearby overlook, a guardrail-encircled metal cliff overlooking Cyber City much like the ones dotting the field near their shop.  The view was just as breathtaking, a perfect panorama of the city and the surrounding fields and roller coaster tracks, lit by glowing neon lights and the ever-pulsing green wireframe above.  And as a cherry on top, it was all from an angle they wouldn't normally see from their usual sector, the giant ferris wheel front and center as it ferried passengers from one end of the city to the other.

"Wow..."  Just as Cap'n hoped, the sight splashed a little water on Sweet's red-hot circuits, and the speaker sank down with him, sitting with his feet dangling off the cliffside as he rested his arms onto the rail.  And K_K did the same, their eyes going right to a roller coaster train full of commuters making its way into the city.

"So whadda ya think?"  Relieved, he watched both of his companions for any more aggression, but the distraction worked like a charm.  "Cool, right?  I used to grab some ice cream and hang out here whenever I got steamed up over somethin'."

"I can see that," Sweet replied.  He hadn't realized how much closer this particular suburb was to the city limits than their own neighborhood, making the view all the more splendid – whenever Cap'n claimed he could make the run from his old school in twenty minutes flat with the right motivation Sweet had always scoffed, but now, his eye tracing the streets into the city, he could sort of see it.  Kicking his feet a couple of times, Sweet was glad to have the railing there to keep him from accidentally tumbling off – he'd never quite gotten the hang of sliding down those steep slopes like most residents of the Cyber Fields.  

"You guys wanna get some ice cream?" K_K asked.  "I think we all need it."

"Yeah, K_K, we...I got pretty steamed."  Sighing, Sweet slumped further onto the railing, resting his entire upper body onto it, as he let all that steam out.  "I'm sorry."

"I was supposed to apologize first!  I'm sorry too.  Going to a Queen party was a bad idea, since I'm a rebel..."

"No, K_K, you had to see what they're like for yourself instead of just having me tell you, nothing wrong with that!"  As Sweet spoke, K_K reached across Cap'n's shoulders to lay a heavy, supportive hand onto his back, and the boombox slid away from underneath to let them work things out on their own.  "I've been kind of a hater ever since this all started, just tryin' to push everything away and stay in my own little bubble.  Sometimes I forget that it's not all about us..."

"Yeah.  There's a lot of people in Cyber World!"  They paused, watching them all in the distance marching and weaving between the neon buildings like tiny computer bugs.  "I just want everyone to stop fighting each other and have fun again.  I miss when everything was nice, before Queen got mean."  

"You and me both, K_K!"  He smiled at them, but it was short-lived, the look in Sweet's speaker quickly souring again.  "I just...Everything's been...harder, lately, you know?  It's like the whole Dark World's gone wrong, so much changing all at once.  People shouting at each other, taking sides, threatening anyone who doesn't agree with them.  All the new laws Queen's pushing that don't make any sense, that don't help anyone, only seem to be made to punish people.  Everything more expensive, feeling like everyone's just taking advantage of us regular people.  Bad news literally everywhere, on the TV, on Cap's radio, it just feels...scary, like we can't be safe anymore, we can't have hope, until something puts it all back the way it used to be."

Sighing, Sweet stared out towards Cyber City, determination seeping into his voice.  "I just...I can't stand by and do nothing.  I have to do something!  And that's why our rebellion's so important to me, why you guys are so important.  We can do something, together!  In fact we are doing something, we're throwing a concert tomorrow!"

"Yeah!"  K_K grinned with Sweet.  "Um...we're still doing the concert, right?  You tore up all the fliers."

"Of course!  There's no stopping the Sweet Cap'n Cakes!  Right, Cap?"  

As he listened to the conversation from a distance, Cap'n gave a hollow smirk.  The whole afternoon he hadn't realized at all just how important that concert was, to Sweet at least, and how much he'd been holding it all up, insisting on grabbing snacks and flirting with old Addison women who were NOT his type and lagging behind in his old hometown.

"Guess we better get back to our studio and get ready, huh?  You guys got the time?"

K_K automatically reached into their pocket but Sweet reminded them they'd left their phone behind on the charger.  Instead, he pulled out his watch.  "It's...2:59.  Oh no."  Horrified, the trio watched as the liquid crystals blinked to show 3PM, and almost immediately a squad of Werewires dropped down, long fingers glowing with readied laser fire, their aim trained right onto Cap'n's blue hoodie.

"We...We gotta fight 'em off," Sweet suggested.

"Maybe we can ask them to let Cap'n change?" K_K offered instead.

Ultimately, though, Cap'n's strategy proved most effective: "RUN!!"

He snatched Sweet by the shoulder and hopped the railing right over the edge, with K_K following close behind as the three slid down the steep cliff face and weaved through the streets below, dodging laser fire and outrunning Queen at every turn.

—

As the trio packed up their things and tied the generator to Sweet's turntable for easy transport, Cap'n's parents both made sure to return home early and see them off.  It actually hadn't been planned, with Cap'n wanting to slip away quickly and quietly, but they'd insisted, and he couldn't be happier.

"Don't come to this one, seriously.  Things are gonna get real tense if Queen catches on."

Hugging her son tightly, Anna promised, "We won't, but if you get into trouble, just come home and we'll help you however we can.  You've still got the spare key!"  She smirked at Cap'n.  "Or, you know...You can always just come over to visit any time.  I'm gonna miss having my special grown-up man around so much!"  Cap'n sighed; he really did open up an entire new world of embarrassing nicknames from his mother.

"Take care of him, you two," Edward instructed Sweet and K_K.  "And yourselves, too!  The last thing we want is for any of you three is to crash after flying so high!"

"Edward!!"

"Alright, alright!"  He laughed.  "Cut us a demo, will you?"

"You got it," Sweet assured him.  They turned, checking the generator one last time to make sure it was secure before hopping right on top of it, setting the controls for the junk shop.  

The whole time, K_K said nothing, but did scoop up both of the older robots in one of their signature tight hugs, and their bandmates as well, once everything was packed and ready to go.  Cap'n they allowed to wiggle free right away, but Sweet they gripped onto tighter, squeezing their boxy speaker case as they whispered to him, "I'm still sorry."

"It's okay, K_K," he replied, trying his best from within K_K's tight squeeze to maneuver his arms into a position that could be interpreted as hugging them back.  "Just please don't scare me like that again.  I'm scared enough of everything else going on in Cyber World."

"You don't have to be.  I'll protect you."  K_K pulled away, smiling, and waved behind them as they followed behind Cap'n, with Sweet in tow.

As the trio finally disappeared into the thick black fog of the Cyber Field, Edward sighed sadly.  "So when will we finally see a pair of marriage shoes on Cap'n's feet, you think?"

Anna didn't need more than a few seconds to come up with an answer.  "Three months."

"Three months?!  Don't you think that's a little quick?"

"Hey, you know he got my stubbornness!  He's not gonna let not having the deal anymore stop him from trying to find someone!"  She gave the same playful smirk to her husband that she'd given Cap'n earlier.  "Besides, you saw the way those two were looking at him the past couple days."

"...Good point."  He hummed and crossed his arms, deep in thought.  "Still, three months...I can't see it happening that fast."

"So when are you thinking, Eddie?"

"Three and a half months, at least."

"Is that a bet?"

"It's a bet."  Smirking, Anna held out her hand for Ed to shake, but just as he reached to do so his wife tugged him closer, planting a tiny surprise smooch onto his purple plastic, which started glowing nearly white-hot instead, making her giggle.

"Gotcha!"

Chapter Text

From his vantage point high in the rafters of the abandoned warehouse lobby, Sweet peered downward at the trio's hard work.  "Those lasers really do bring it all together, K_K!"

"Thanks."  The CD player had some trouble seeing their lasers in action, their head stuck between two rusty metal beams as they secured the last of the spotlights in place, with Sweet at their side taking care of the wiring, but so long as their companion approved they were happy.  

With one of K_K's long arms latched tightly onto Sweet to keep him from falling off his flying turntable to the floor below, the pair watched as the concert attendees started to fill in, and the CD player occasionally recognized a face or two from the party earlier in the week – a Swatchling with a little neon paint still splattered on her red suit, a Werewire in an well-worn Sweet Cap'n Cakes T-shirt, and Diode and Faraday, who as soon as they arrived set out several plates of brownies along the counter in the back, next to the CD bagels the band themselves provided.  From the sheer amount K_K and Sweet guessed the Addisons must've been baking all night!  

Giggling, they lowered their other arm, extending it all the way down to snatch up a couple of the treats, one for themself and one for Sweet, who eagerly shoved the entire thing into his eye.  "Wow, these really are great!  You got the recipe right?"

K_K nodded, glancing back toward the growing crowd as Sweet finished up the last few connections with the lights.  It wasn't entirely the guests they'd invited themselves below, as they noticed The Hacker off to one side, crossing his arms and scowling as if trying his best to look like he hadn't made such a public appearance voluntarily, and Nubert up front close to the brownies, wearing a blond wig and making smalltalk with a group of his fans.  One of which was a bandaged-up Maus, who Nubert gifted his wig to in the name of charity, assuring him he'd find another.  And weaving between everyone was a face K_K definitely recognized, even if he'd had to ditch the blue hoodie for a new purple one until midnight, when it was technically before 3PM the next day.  

Sweeping the last of the trash and dust into the side room with the old couch he'd pushed in there earlier, Cap'n tossed the broom inside as well and slammed the door, and gave a quick thumbs-up to his bandmates above, signaling that the chores he and K_K SHOULD have finished days earlier were finally complete.  

"Almost showtime~," K_K sang out to Sweet, who smiled with his eye back at them, and the two went back to crowd-watching, humming with excitement.  When Sweet had first come up with the concert plan, he'd thought, they'd be lucky to only get a handful of people, a small group willing to take the risk, but seeing the room slowly fill beneath him filled the speaker with pride, for his bandmates' efforts far more than his own.

The week's worth of hard work was about to pay off, and Sweet felt his soul pounding within his chest, ready to rock and roll for the first time in far too long.  But, for a few more minutes he lounged atop his turntable, his gaze shifting ahead as Cap'n handled a few more final preparations, doing mic checks and testing the volume on the large speakers they'd set up around a small raised stage, taking up most of one end of the room.

Even if he'd dropped the ball on the cleanup earlier Sweet couldn't be too hard on him, it was his genius that was keeping the loudspeakers and lights and lasers in that old, abandoned, long-since-disconnected warehouse on that night.  The generator they'd built for the shop had run nearly nonstop since the night before as the trio practiced, with Sweet starting to become concerned about their dwindling supply of Nubert Dollars to fuel it for the show itself, until Cap'n set up a trash can near the entrance.  A sign on it instructed patrons to "recycle" their devalued cryptocurrency, many of whom obliged, with their donations running through a hose in the bottom of the can straight into the generator's fuel tank.  Sweet wasn't even sure he could've come up with something so simple yet effective, as he wired up the very spotlights that the scheme made possible, and resolved to perhaps give Cap'n a break the next time he slacked off.

With the trio's sound setup working perfectly, Cap'n tapped the microphone a couple of times to hear the speakers pop, and pulled it off its stand, looping the loose cord around his arm.  The plan was that he'd hype up the crowd before the other two made their big entrance, dropping down from above the instant the stage lights were done, but just as he opened his mouth to speak one of them flickered yet again, and he glanced up to see Sweet and K_K already scrambling to repair it, meaning he'd need to stall just a little longer.  

"Al-Alright," he squeaked out, for a moment sounding more like a Maus than a boombox robot.  Damn it, Cap'n still couldn't help being nervous before concerts, even with so many under his belt.  But, he cleared his speech synthesizer, smirking as he faux-confidently belted out, "Alright alright alright, Cyber City!"

Right away there were a few cheers and claps, but less than he'd hoped -- concertgoers were still filing in, with plenty of open space on the floor, more reasons to stall.  

"So, uh..."  His mind racing to come with something to say, Cap'n defaulted to some light entertainment.  "You guys hear about the Swatchling that got cybernetic bug implants?  He's a Swaspling now!"

Crickets.  He tried a few more painful jokes, getting polite laughs once the crowd filled in a bit more, but nothing anywhere close to what he'd hoped.

"What the hell is Cap doing?" Sweet asked, tucking his screwdriver into a compartment on the side of his turntable as soon as he finished with the faulty light.  "This is a concert, not Open Mic Night at the Cyber Grill!"

But in contrast, K_K suddenly burst into laughter.  "I get it!  Like 'Swatchling', but he's part wasp now!"  Sweet just stared, heavy disdain in his speaker.

Oily sweat dripped down Cap'n's neck as he tugged at his bandana, and he looked back up at Sweet, silently thanking them as they motioned out an order to go back to hype, and to lose the jokes, forever, please.

"Alright, looks like I gotta work a little more on that routine before the next Open Mic Night at the Cyber Grill!"  For the first time, Cap'n got some genuine laughs, making him internally groan.  "Y'all like me more for my looks and my lyrics anyway, am I right?"  The crowd cheered.  "You like the Sweet Cap'n Cakes for our rhythms and rhymes!  For our sound and our style!  For our, dare I say, je ne say quoy!  For keepin' Cyber City rockin' with a terrible noise, for not givin' in to the big bad-"

Cap'n suddenly stopped in his tracks, as at the very back of the big room he spotted another concertgoer walking through the doors, her heels clacking against the tiles and her cold, calculating smile on the laser displays K_K had set up.

"Oh Good I Was Worried When I Couldn't See Any Lasers Outside Because Of The Posters"

He involuntarily loaded in those Maus voice files again.  "Shit."  Dropping the mic, Cap'n dashed back into the side room where he'd stashed the trash and the couch, safely out of Queen's view.

"Where the heck's he going?!"

"Sweet.  Look."  K_K pointed out their newest guest, and without missing a beat expertly caught the speaker by the ankle as he tumbled off his turntable in shock.

"QUEEN?!"  Even dangling upside-down from K_K's tight grip, the oil rushing to his head, Sweet couldn't believe he was seeing her with his own eye, there, in the middle of the crowd, which parted to allow her the best view in the house right from the front row.  Some more savvy attendees hastily escaped right after – The Hacker even jumped right out one of the windows and fled into the night, leaving a distinctly arrow-shaped hole in both the glass and the poster covering it.

"What's she doing here?!"

"We did say it'd be a 'noise music' concert," K_K said as they tried in vain to pull Sweet back up, his leg and their arms somehow getting caught in the haphazard wiring for the stage lights, every tug making them flicker yet again.  While K_K untangled him Sweet gave an upside-down facepalm, as every one of his carefully-crafted plans to Queen-proof the concert went up in flames.

He spotted Cap'n peering out the door below, and gestured to him, though the boombox quickly cut him off.  His hands flailing, he signed up to them over and over, "Dead.  Dead.  Dead. "

"Not yet," Sweet replied, hoping his own signing could be understood upside-down.  "Stay in there and wait for us."  Finally, K_K pulled him back up to safety, but still held him in place as Sweet regained his balance.  He couldn't lie forever, they were indeed dead, dead, dead.

"We're so dead," he muttered, his eye shut tight to keep his speaker from reverberating with dread.  It didn't help the rest of him, though, his body shaking atop the turntable, even with K_K standing on its surface next to him and gripping his shoulders.

K_K's hands shook just as badly, and Sweet glanced up at their face, anxious and puzzled as they stared at Queen below, settled into the front row with a brownie and swirling a glowing glass of battery acid in her hand, waiting for the performance to begin.

"What do we do now?"

"...I don't know."  The concert was ruined, all the trio's plans sunk in mere seconds with Queen's arrival.  "She's bound to have this place surrounded.  If we play even a single note that's not what we got advertised on the poster..."

Wait.  They'd advertised that they would be playing "Noise Music" on all the posters, Sweet's bait-and-switch trick to fool Queen and all her supporters.  They'd put the song right at the beginning of the setlist, the only actual, practiced song before K_K let loose with their improvised melodies, starting out with a few dissonant screeches and banging before Sweet broke out his guitar for a four-second solo.  It was the furthest thing from what the tongue-in-cheek name aimed squarely at Queen's ban implied, and a song that Sweet was especially proud of, but with the subject in question right there in the audience...

Oh, the pieces couldn't have lined up more perfectly that night, for Sweet to finally stick it to Queen once and for all.  To show her personally that he, Sweet, and his friends, wouldn't stand for her and her insanity any longer!  As K_K finally managed to pull them back up onto the turntable they gripped the CD player's arm tight, locking their eye with his.

"K_K...I'm gonna play."

"But, Queen's down there?  Shouldn't we run?"

"I can't run, K_K."

Blinking, K_K glanced down at where they'd caught Sweet's leg.  "Did I hurt you again?"

"No!  It's not that."  Sighing, Sweet tugged the big CD player closer, hugging them tightly on the turntable's surface.  "I came here to put on a show, to play all the real music I want, and that's what I'm gonna do, Queen or no Queen.  In fact...it's better with her here, I want to see her face when she hears!"  Sweet squeezed harder, K_K patting his head reassuringly.  "You and Cap, you should just get out of here.  Keep yourselves safe."

Sweet wanted so badly to feel the gentle pinpricks of oily tears along his speaker rim as he spoke, his mind made up and ready for what would undoubtedly be the last, and greatest, concert of his musical career.  So, it didn't surprise him when he felt a few drip down onto the back of his speaker head from where K_K leaned over him, wrapping him in their embrace.

"Sweet, if you wanna play, we'll play."

"No, just me!"  It became a quiet competition to see who could hug the other tighter, Sweet or K_K, though the former really couldn't match the latter's long arms wrapping around both of them.  "K_K, don't you get it?  Once Queen catches on..."

"We're in trouble."  K_K giggled a little to themselves; they'd always wanted to finish one of Sweet's sentences instead of Cap'n.  "But it's okay.  We're always in trouble.  We're rebels, right?"

Sweet confirmed, audibly grinning.  "Still...K_K, you know we might not be able to escape this time, right?  She's got us trapped, no way we won't be wired by the end of it." 

"Then we go out with a crash.  Or a boom...a bang!"  K_K chattered excitedly, a determined smile across their lips.  "Do you want me to set the lasers to blow up the place when we're done?"

Sweet's eye widening, he hopped up onto his turntable, again making K_K reach out to keep him from slipping off and falling to the floor.  "That's a great idea!  We'll collapse the ceiling right on Queen and save all of Cyber World!!"

"What about everyone else in the crowd?" K_K asked, pointing, as the last of the concert attendees stepped inside and waited patiently for the show to begin.

"Oh yeah..."  So much for the heroics.  "Well, maybe we can still try it.  Play a few songs, then use the lasers to cover our escape, if we can."

Even a slight chance of escape was a massive risk, Sweet knew.  He'd already accepted he'd be wired once the concert was finished, or even before, depending on Queen's mood, losing himself into her hivemind with all the rest of Cyber World's robots, never again to play a single note, or get the chance to see his bandmates again.  "K_K, if you're still with me on this, I just wanna say...you and Cap are my best friends ever and if I could kiss you I would."  The sentiment made K_K laugh, and they pulled Sweet in for one final hug, feeling their soul pounding in their chest.  So long as they were together, running through the city streets or jamming out or hanging on wires, K_K would be happy.

Over the speaker's shoulders they signed out the plan as best they could to Cap'n, telling him to go if he wanted, that they wouldn't mind, but he surprised them by merely giving his bandmates a thumbs-up, and calmly walking back to the stage, microphone in hand.

Sweet was done fighting.  Cap'n was done running.  K_K was done doing...whatever it was they did, and now, it was time to rock.

"Alright alright, got a little announcement to make," Cap'n shouted out to the impatient crowd, desperately willing his voice to keep from shaking.  "This is gonna be Sweet Cap'n Cakes' final show, before the three of us go back underground!"  Six feet underground.  But, as Cap'n looked right into Queen's black visor, gulping, he steeled himself.  After all, he might be a coward, not nearly as brave as Sweet or K_K, but not even he would skip putting on a show for a hot mama like her.

The crowd was quiet, shocked at the announcement, but Cap'n gave a hollow smirk.  "Now I don't wanna hear no tears, all I wanna hear tonight is noise!  Kick up the volume!  Blast the bass!  Even if we didn't have Queenie right here with us tonight," he said, winking at her," I want them to hear all the way up in the mansion, how much you love the Sweet Cap'n Cakes!  How much you love...'Noise' Music."  

Cap'n stepped back, out of K_K's landing zone as they slammed down onto the stage, their bulky frame making the stage rumble.  Sweet came down a bit more elegantly, the jets on their turntable doing the work for them, before they hopped down behind it and slapped on a record.  Before he could set the needle though K_K pulled Cap'n's microphone closer.

"Hey, Queen?  Can you unban music?"

There were a few chuckles from the audience, including a hearty laugh and a distinct "No" from Queen herself.  K_K just shrugged, it was worth a shot.

With a nod signifying his companion was finished, Cap'n thrust his microphone right into one of the nearby stage speakers, filling the entire warehouse with a deafening electronic screech that made nearly everyone clap their hands over their ears (or whatever approximated for such).  K_K smashed a pair of cymbals, Sweet pulled out his guitar and swiped aimlessly at the strings, and Cap'n just stood there and smirked, as Queen smiled up at them in unknowing approval.  The crowd thoroughly faked out, Sweet's strumming became more melodic, reaching up to a high E to start the final solo of his musical career.  

He only wished he'd gotten to practice it a little more first.

—

Glancing up at K_K as they practically threw Sweet behind the dumpster with Cap'n, the speaker gasped, examining their inputs with their fingertips for any wires once again.  "Are we all still alive?!"

"Barely," Cap'n whispered, peeking around the edge, watching and listening closely.  He'd done the same throughout the concert, every sensor tracking Queen though the spotlights; at first didn't she respond to the switchup to real music, merely cocking her head curiously at this strange new form of noise music.  But at about eight songs in as her expression turned more to recognition Cap'n suddenly kicked over one of K_K's lasers, blinding her as he pulled the others behind him into the back of the warehouse, slipping out into the night.  Sure, the concert lasted about thirty seconds total, give or take a few, but that wasn't too unusual for a band like them, they'd played their hearts out for all of it just as they'd hoped to, and even if Sweet and K_K had already accepted defeat Cap'n refused it, putting his own plan into action to get away and rebel another day.

Not that the Werewires were making it easy.  Just as expected they'd swarmed the district on Queen's mental command, searching for the rebels, and Cap'n ducked back into the alley just as he noticed a squad floating around the corner, hoping they hadn't heard the three of them.  He motioned for his bandmates to stay absolutely silent and still as the Werewires passed right past the alley entrance inches away, only daring to even breathe after they'd long since disappeared around the next intersection.

"Damn, that was close," he muttered, panting as he sunk to the trash-covered ground.  "We gotta find a way outta this place before she starts sendin' out the Swatchlings.  Ain't no way a dumpster's gonna save us from those neat freaks!"

Curious, K_K poked their head out into the street as well, glancing up and down both directions.  It was a side street tucked into a distant corner of the city, one that they'd never seen before, but they smiled, as one little detail stood out.  With Sweet and Cap'n hissing behind them to get back to safety before they got spotted, K_K approached a nearby data bus stop, plucking a pamphlet out of a small container attached to it and studying the timetables carefully before hurrying back to their bandmates.

"Sweet, what time is it?"

Blinking in confusion, they pulled out their watch.  "Quarter after ten.  Uh...10:17," they clarified, and K_K's smile only grew bigger.  

"You guys got exact change, right?  I don't have any passes for Cyber City."

Right after they said that a low, distant engine rumble announced the arrival of the bus – the time listed in the pamphlet was 10:15, but the buses almost always ran a few minutes late.  K_K pulled their companions right on, taking the seat at the back to watch as a pair of Swatchlings turned onto the street after it.  They squawked at the bus driver to stop, but it was a second too late, the doors had already closed and the bus pulled away on its route, leaving K_K to wave happily to their pursuers as they disappeared into the distance behind them, flapping their wings furiously.

"K_K," Cap'n said, sinking into the worn seat next to them, "you are a damn lifesaver.  City bus pass is yours, and maybe Sweet an' I'll get some too, soon as we get more cash to buy 'em."

"Which won't be for a while," Sweet pointed out, his speaker furrowing.  "The fare was the last of what we had left, but at least we don't have to pay any more bills for now..."  He shivered.  "Oh wait, shit, we left the generator back there!"

"Relax, I stashed it with your turntable in the back," Cap'n reassured Sweet, patting their back a few times.  "We'll just go grab 'em once the heat's off, after layin' low at my folks' place a few more days."  He checked his pocket, making sure his spare key hadn't fallen out in the chaos.

Whining, Sweet closed his eye, trying not to worry about his precious turntable all alone in a dark abandoned warehouse for so long, but he jumped up in surprise as static suddenly blared from Cap'n's speakers, the boombox straightening out his antenna and adjusting his tuner as a broadcast came in.  Aside from the driver the bus was empty at such a late hour, the whole place to themselves, and so all three listened in closely to Queen's monotone voice as it came in over the airwaves.

"Thanks To A Very Interesting Concert I Have Been...Inspired, To Repeal One (1) Of My Recent Laws"  She paused.  "One That My Data Shows Has Been Most Damaging To The Citizens Of Cyber World"

"Wait, what'd she just say?!"  Sweet stared, silently begging Cap'n to give him the answer, as he just shushed Sweet, raising his volume.

"As Of This Moment," Queen declared, "It Is Now Permissible To: Drop Cheese Onto The Street"

"The CHEESE?!"  Sweet smacked Cap'n in the chest, outraged.  

Queen brought Nubert and the damaged Maus from the concert to the microphone to say a few additional words, but the impact from Sweet's fist knocked Cap'n's tuner off before anyone could hear them.  "Yo, man, don't hate on the messenger!"  

K_K would normally have stepped in by that point but they didn't even notice, staring out the window next to them as crowds of Maice gathered along the streets outside their puzzles and alleys, squeaking happily and cheering as the bus passed.  A few even dove into trash cans, pulling out a few wedges of cheese they'd kept safely hidden away from Queen's watch, to share with their neighbors along with any other Darkners who emerged to join them.

"We played an entire concert from the bottom of our souls and it inspired her to unban cheese .  Unbelievable."

"It made everyone so happy, though," K_K observed, tapping Sweet's shoulder to show them all the little plastic faces they'd accidentally aided.  "Our concert really fixed Cyber World, just a little."

"Yeah...you're right, K_K."  A soft smile in his gaze, Sweet pulled the CD player into a celebratory half-hug.  "It wasn't what we set out to do tonight, but our rebellion still worked!  We got Queen to back off from one of her bans!"  Already, plans buzzed through Sweet's processor, ways they could keep the momentum going.  "If we keep this up, eventually, we could get music back too!  And blue hoodies, and pineapple tarts, and-"

Interrupted by the sound of Cap'n scrolling through channels again, Sweet glared back at him.  "Yeah, we'll do all that, after I find out who won on Shadows of Love!  Seein' as how I didn't get a chance to tune in tonight..."  Finally he found a station discussing the final episode, as well as the result, and as soon as Cap'n heard the name he jumped up, gritting his teeth.  "Yo K_K!  Where'd you say this bus is takin' us?!"

"Uh..."  K_K studied the pamphlet again, turning a map printed on it over and over.  "I think to Solitaire Village?  You said that's close to where your parents live, right?"  They hadn't really planned that far ahead, eager as they'd been to simply get away from the site of their concert, but they smiled at how well things had worked out.

"That's the wrong way!  Driver turn this thing around, we gotta get to the TV station and make 'em change their minds!!"  All Cap'n got for the effort was a command to sit back down, to which he begrudgingly complied, sulking in the back seat with his arms crossed.

"I thought it was the bachelor who got to pick who he wanted to date?  Maybe Shadowmen just aren't all that into saxophonists after all, Cap."  Stifling a laugh at Cap'n's tantrum, Sweet sighed, scooting across the back seat to another window opposite K_K's and enjoying the ride.  

Barely visible over the skyscrapers the wireframe sky gave way to fireworks and glowing spotlights, the Dark World city's long night still just starting, and maybe, Sweet thought as he watched it all pass by in the distance, as the urban streets began to thin out and traffic spilled out into the Cyber Field, maybe some things hadn't changed so much after all.