Chapter Text
She heard it all.
She had heard the conversations that played over and over in the iterators mind, sometimes even hearing the thoughts that raced through the supercomputers head. Most of the time they were angry thoughts, thoughts of displeasure and frustration. Often they had a certain feel to them, a feeling of anger and resentment laced the neurons she had traveled through.
More recently, she had noticed something other than the rage in the iterator. She hadn’t been able to get any answers out of the supercomputer, no matter how hard she tried. And she did try. She tried real hard to get any semblance of an answer out of the robot. All she had been left with was the angry “You have a job to do, right? Go do it.” or “Can’t you see I’m busy!” that he always used to have.
She had taken her time, trying to figure out what was going on. She listened to the neurons carrying information throughout, she kept her one eye sharp to any abnormality in the walls or pipes, which, aside from the occasional rot cyst, nothing was wrong. The rot was to be expected, anyway. After it had gotten this bad she was sent to try and rid the system of it, which she was effective at.
It took too long to figure out the issue. It took that blue slugcat coming in to give her the answer.
She remembered the one-sided conversation vividly. She had been watching from the top pipe in the can, observing what this slimy beast would end up doing. Only then did she understand what was happening:
Five Pebbles had given up.
Honestly, at his state, she should have known this was coming. He was clearly breaking down, and she had struggled to keep the system clear of any remains of the rot, but it still hurt for her to realize. After the blue slugcat left the can, she had jumped down to the bottom of the can.
She had landed with less grace than she would like to admit, having to balance herself before she stood up normally. Death could not affect her, but she was still getting older. She watched a spark fly from one of Five Pebbles’ wires, antennae quickly bent down as he turned around to face the slugcat.
“Were you watching all that?” He questioned, giving as much of a side glare as pearl-white, expressionless eyes could. She had crossed her front arms, nodding with a flick of her ear. The robot gave an electronic sigh, looking away.
“If you want to help it go ahead, I cannot stop you anyway.” He had grabbed the pearl that was floating above his head, holding it in his puppets hands as the melody played throughout the can. She had hissed, glaring him down before leaping to his side on four legs and looking up, making sure he saw her. Five Pebbles had stared at her for a moment before pushing her away with a free hand. “Just go, I don’t care what you do here anymore.”
She should have known that this would happen soon. The rot had consumed most of his systems, making his original work all the more difficult. She had insisted on staying, lightly biting his hand and head butting him before sliding onto his lap and refusing to get off. Five Pebbles had made a weird noise, a mix of surprise and annoyance, before accepting his fate and continuing to wallow.
She knew she couldn’t do anything past that, and she hated that.
When the blue slugcat returned with the Rarefaction Cell, she knew what she had to do. The moment the small beast left, she got to work. She raced up to the Metropolis and grabbed a backpack. Moving as fast as she could she ran back down to the actual supercomputer and gathered neurons, much to Five Pebbles confusion.
She had seen Looks to the Moon, Five Pebbles kept an eye on her and sent the red slugcat out to fight lizards in Shoreline more than once, just to keep her from shutting down. She knew that she was alive, and maybe if she gathered enough neurons Five Pebbles might survive the collapse. Once she had gotten enough, all she could do is wait. Wait in horror as she continued to hear the cracking of the metal.
And now here she would stay. Watching over the scattered pieces of Five Pebbles system, pressing the backpack against him as she hoped something would happen. It was truly a waiting game, and she knew it all too well.
So here the red slugcat sat, and waited. Waited for something to happen, for Five Pebbles to awaken.
Her ear pricked, grip loosening on the backpack as she stared off into the blizzard.
She heard everything. And this time, she heard the snow fall underneath a footstep.