Chapter Text
Nick was cleaning the Aurora once again, since it’s been a long (for him) time since he did it. Currently ze was arranging some random things in one of the storage rooms when some sort of technology fell down. Luckily, Nick was fast enough to save it from a hard floor at the last moment but he heard a few clicks of buttons. “Shit.” The researcher thought, squeezed zirs eyes and froze in place. But nothing changed. Or, at least, he thought so. When Nick opened his eyes there was no mechanism. And, wait, there weren’t these things around when ze was cleaning... In fact, this whole storage room was different in its entirety. Nick’s eyes widened and ze quickly got up, not sure what to do. “Aurora?..” Nick said a bit louder than zirs normal volume, running his eyes around the new storage room.
Nick's voice echoed oddly in the space, the shelves and boxes did little to stop it other than offer some distortion, it felt empty despite the clear use of the area. The Aurora gave no indication that she heard the call, adding to the feeling, she was simply content to for now just watch and wait to see what was going to happen if ze was left to himself. For now at least, after all like all the crew she’ll get bored and guide things along.
"That's not that Aurora. It's all different. Where the hell am I?! What would Marius think?" Nick felt his eyes watering and panic raising in his chest. Despite all of this bundle of emotions and feelings, ze clenched his hands in fists and took one shaky step towards the exit. Then another. And one more. And the last one. He was now standing in the opened door frame, looking at unfamiliar halls. Everything was off. The sounds, the scratches on the walls, even time and space were different.
Ze was not in the same universe anymore. And it means he has to pray to any gods that Mechanisms here won't kill him immediately.
He did't get to even say goodbye.
Fuck.
The ship was moving, Nick could always sence it, so there is no way of escaping without death right now. And right now out of all times it was especially inconvinient that his species need food and water.
Fuck.
Okay, the Mechanisms clearly left the impact on zirs vocabulary. Not the time to think about it though. Clearly not.
"Okay, Nick, think. Think. Who would kill you less painfully? Tim? Jonny? Might be Tim, they probably would just shoot you. Jonny might too but hell, it's very dependant on his mood. And this is a different universe, it might be worse. Still..."
Nick stepped out of the door frame and into the halls, hoping zirs demise won't be too ignominious.
Auroras layout isn’t so different it’s not unnavigable but it’s definitely a mind fuck, turns are mirrored, doors are in different places or missing completely.
As ze gets closer to where ze thinks the common/living areas are, the sounds of gunfire becomes prevalent, whoever’s there is armed and clearly already in a mood enough to be shooting, which isn’t surprising considering the crew.
Nick felt some sort of weird relief at sounds of gunfire, meaning he could just run into a bullet. Ze carefully, but loudly enough, knocked on the door and waited for a response.
There were sounds of movement, a chair being moved, or more accurately a chair being nearly knocked over, as well as a voice approaching the door.
“What’s the knockin’ f’r? ‘s ‘rora lockin’ shit… ‘gain” He trailed off as the door opens and he came face to face with Nick.
The room he was standing in is one of the common rooms, it looked different than what Nick used to. There’s an area filled with couches and other such comfortable seating in the centre of the chairs is an out of place looking target. On the other side of the room much closer to the door there was a table, paper and a few bottles littered its top.
“Hello, Captain.. I’m.. I’m so sorry, okay, look, I don’t know what happened and if you want to kill me it’s completely fine, just few last words if it pleases you, it’s alright if not, I didn’t mean to be here but I know it’s a shi- it’s a bad excuse, I’m sorry.” Nick said in one breath and held it when ze stopped spluttering the words out. The researcher avoided any eye contact and looked at the gun, then at some random direction, then back at the gun.
“Fucksake, I always forget how snivellin’ ya are.” Jonny said before he even thought about the word vomit he was just forced to listen, but quickly got on with a proper response.
“Ya want t’ try that from the top with less unconfidence ‘nd more brethin’ so I can least pretend t’ tolerate a conversation with ya.”
Jonny's tail flicked impatiently as he stared Nick down.
“I’m sorry, I will.. I will try. Captain, you said you “forget” which means you know who I am?” Nick tried to talk slower and breathe but it was only semi-successful. Ze looked at the target in the room and back at the still slightly smoking gun, trying to prepare himself after this answer.
“Well ‘m pretty sure I do, ya look like yer profile on that stupid fuckin’ website.”
Jonny understood why Nick was looking around so much, he’s intimidating after all, ze’s a coward, and he doesn’t know zir opinions on it but plenty of people he have met don’t like eye contact. Even with those reasons, the constant flickering of zirs eyes wasn’t any less annoying.
“Ya want t’ take its place or somthin’?”
“Tumblr? So.. oh, so you’re that one Captain. Okay. Sorry, I didn't recognise you from the start. I mean, if you want to get rid of me it’s totally understandable, you can do that, I can take the place, I get it, you are pretty annoyed with me and stowaways in general and you’re clearly in the mood for shooting so it’s logical. Then the ask for last words is still up, I guess?” Nick checked Jonny’s tail and the target again. This one Captain didn’t seem as violent as the one ze used to know but it was only a website and it was still an immortal deadly space pirate in front of him with a mood for violence.
“That one captain,” Jonny repeated to himself with offence. “Yeah Tumblr, s’posed I can’t blame ya ‘s not like ya’ve met this version of me t’ pick out details.”
Jonny sneers, “Go ahead say what ya want, entertain me with it.”
Jonny hadn’t got a want to kill the man, at the moment, despite what Nick clearly thought and because of that he was going to play into it. He could use the distraction and watching someone squirm will do.
“Oh, alright, thank you, not sure how entertaining I will be, I’m sorry. Well, I’m sorry to Marius, if you will ever hear this, that I didn’t die from your hands and disappeared without any proper goodbye or even any will of my own. I’m sorry that our last conversation was me talking about how I possibly killed someone and felt no remorse to this day and generally about some, apparently, nasty things from my past. I’m sorry I never paid you back for everything and...” Nick stopped, pondering if he should say it or take it to his grave, “And thank you for showing me life, and care, and attention. For everything, actually. Of course, thank you,” The researcher glanced at Jonny, making a brief eye contact to let him know ze was talking about him, and not the Jonny from the past universe, “Captain for giving me this time. Hope you enjoyed it and will enjoy taking my life.” Nick took a deep breath and clenched zirs fists once again but with much more force, looking at the gun. Few tears left zirs eyes uncontrollably.
Jonny heard millions of last words in his time, occasionally they mention the act of someone in the crew which is always funny, but hearing such honest pathetic words about one of them even an alternate universe version was… disgusting to put it plainly.
“I’ll give ‘em an a solid 7/10 not the best I’ve heard but not half bad, Yer a little t’ resigned f’r my tastes.”
Nick didn’t answer, waiting for the shot but froze up when none was even after a pause.
“What.. Are you.. Are you planning on something other than a shot? I.. thought you would shoot me.. Was I wrong?” Nick started to nervously check the environment for any signs of other dangers but didn’t move, only dotting his eyes everywhere.
“Pretty damn sure I’ve said before I ‘ave an interest in yer story; me torturing ya, physically, don’t add nothin’ of interest other then muddyin’ the narrative with unneeded filler.”
He grinned wider, more bearing his teeth than anything else. “ ‘Course this only stands as long as yer interestin’, then tortures back on the table.”
Nick felt a weird deja vu but he didn’t have much options, did ze?
“Can we sit down then, please? Not necessary, just.. just asking.” The researcher was in favour of playing it safer so he didn’t mention out right that ze might in fact collapse soon. “What do you want to know? I don’t remember much on the spot, I’m sorry. I will try to be useful and.. and entertaining, I guess.”
Jonny grunted and stepped towards the tables, brushing the paper together and folding them, hiding away their content before tucking them into his pocket.
“So stupid fuckin’ facility right?” He sat down gesturing to the other chairs at the table.
“What? Sorry, not sure I am comprehending right. Whatever happened must’ve messed with my head, hopefully only a bit.” Nick carefully sat down, still visibly tense, and started inspecting the scratches on the table.
“Then just startin’ wherever ya remember, will work fine.”
Jonny took a swig from one of the bottles, he didn’t take his eyes off Nick as he did so.
The researcher felt the intense stare and squirmed in his place slightly.
“Well...” Nick tried to dig up his memory for the earliest coherent one, “I’m from a planet that, as I learned much later, was almost destroyed by you, The Mechanisms, though not sure which version of you. It was pretty similar to Earth, if I remember correctly the data from The System. And the event after what was left of my planet tried to survive is called The Fire. I guess the higher ups were not that creative, or at least pretended to be. It’s a thing I only recently started to try and research. But back on track.” Nick looked at Jonny’s gun again and back at the table, “I barely remember events from it, as most on my planet, considering it still exists in any form, but there was a lot of murder, surveillance, suffering of some people, the hunt for those deemed “enemies” and no feelings at all from most of the people. We all tried to restore some structure and home for us all, somehow at some point The Academy took over the whole piece of our planet left and everything ended up in one enormous building with layers.” Nick stopped to quickly glance at Captain and check if ze still satisfies his interest.
Jonny didn’t look to be paying much attention, he was keeping an eye on Nick but mostly seemed to be fiddling with the bottle, rocking it back and forth. Despite what it looked like he pressed on topic precisely.
“Right. You got more of a description of the academy than just layers? It ain’t a lot t’ work with.”
Nick quickly looked back down at the table when he was asked a question.
“Right, well, I don’t know a lot but I do know the basic premise of it. On the top, surface level were ordinary people, mostly the ones supplying all people on the lower levels. It was, like, basic working class. On the levels down, up to, around eighth level, if I recall correctly, were levels of researchers, scientists and all the Academic folks, we all were separated into sections and it was a maze of corridors and rooms. We had cafeterias, libraries, our work-living little rooms, we had the supervisors rooms and we had the main office that you could access from any level but it had its own protection system. Actually there were cameras everywhere, hidden and not. In The Core, so it’s around eighth and ninth levels, we had The System. It was like the heart of the whole Academy, it held all the Information and everything. I.. I know firsthand about it.” At the further mention of The System, Nick rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.
“Mega-buildings, always somthin’ goin’ on, I know we seek that out but still never seen one that weren’t doin’ somthin’ fucked. Well anyway the system? ‘Nd explain it like a normal person cause it sounds like technical shit that’s gonna go over my head otherwise. “
Jonny poured some of the still full bottle into the empty one before pushing it towards Nick. He was not doing it because he was being nice, but because he wanted him drunk. Drunk people talk more.
“Oh, uh..” Nick looked at the offered bottle with some fear, “I.. I’ve never drunk alcohol before, I’m not sure how it will affect me.. Sorry..”
The researcher paused and was silent for a moment, thinking how to better explain what The System was.
“Well, The System is like a huge computer with all information both before The Fire and after it. Only higher ups know and remember what was before our planet was destroyed but somehow no one else does. And that information is properly kept secret. We didn't even have names anymore, I realised my name is Nick only because Marius knew the code that was instead of my name in The Academy. I was researcher-4e69636b or, as people mostly called me, 4e. The System is.. painful, to say the least. They can connect your mind and body to it and then you are degraded down to the data from your brain and when they get all the information they need and teach the program to mimic you they only leave a little piece of your mind in there so that the program from your mind feels more alive. Then your body is disconnected and you are gone from everywhere. That... that was supposed to happen to me, at least.”
Nick started to fidget more with the chain between the buttons of his shirt and somehow looked smaller.
“Best t’ try sooner then later ain’t it.” Jonny left the bottle in front on Nick, not taking it away but not pushing it any further either.
“Evil machine steelin’ the lives from fuckers who are barely livin’ as is? …t’ document what’s happenin’? Sounds redundant t’ me, less ‘m missin’ somethin’.”
“Not exactly document what's happening. The Academy was always after any knowledge that could benefit it and especially after you, The Mechanisms. The whole destruction situation happened because some version of your crew was just passing by our planet and The Institution back then wanted to take Aurora and, after that, your mechanisations. I was placed as a head researcher for your mechanical parts. Perhaps you remember our first ever interactions? I’ve presented you with a blueprint of the possible structure of your heart.” Nick carefully took the bottle and sniffed it first, then took a little sip, followed by immediate coughing.
“Fucking hell, how does anyone drink this?!” The researcher tried to catch a breath, “My throat burns like shit! Is that supposed to happen?!”
“I do remember that now ya mention it, ‘nd i suppose with that context it makes some more sense. But I do want t’ know what got people downgraded?”
Jonnys clearly more engaged than he seemed at the beginning, his tail was brushing too and throw on the floor. He always had a thirst for knowledge, a craving for stories, it led him to the doc years ago.
“With yer lack of experience ‘nd how shit the quality of that is, ‘course it’s gonna burn goin’ down. Ya get used t’ it once yer drunk enough, or with enough alcoholism.”
“I’m not planning on becoming an alcoholic, Captain.” Said Nick when ze finally was able to breathe properly again. “But concerning your question, it was mostly serious disruptions of protocols and discipline. For minor inconveniences they did something else. I’m not sure exactly what yet, I had some suspicions that we were all partially mind-controlled and they just did something with the mind-control of those, who acted mildly wrong, because those people were different the next day and sometimes even did speeches about how important the discipline is and how they are sorry about what they've done. I had it ones. I’m still in the process of understanding what was actually going on on my planet, to be honest. Ever since I left it, my mind has been clearer and clearer and it's so weird.”
“No one does, but it happens all the same. If they fixin’ minor infractions with mind control what’s different enough t’ cause them t’ send someone down f’r a dip in the system. T’ public what they did? Needed t’ be made an example of them so it didn’t fester int’ something they couldn’t squash? Don’t see why they’d waste the resource they could force back int’ line otherwise.” Jonny paused for a moment, “‘Less they only had one of the weaker forms of mind control.”
“Well, I know only about my case for connection to The System and it was my stubbornness against whatever they tried to do when I started questioning Marius about different things and talking to you all in general, that started to cause me to, I guess, get to the truth they were hiding. No one knows that you can be connected to that thing. People just disappeared sometimes and no one saw anything weird in that. And about the public thing - yes, it was probably about the example...” Nick paused and froze, clearly thinking something, before speaking again. “Wait. I think I might be onto something. Before I talk about that, I will tell you why I was connected. I did some impulsive things when I found out that Academy tried to mess up my progress with talking to you and I went a bit rogue, possibly accidentally killing one of the supervisors, - I swear I meant only to knock them out but they didn't come out back again for a little too long, - and sneaking into the main office, knocking out, - for sure this time, - another supervisor and trying to deleting the logs with my activity online. The second supervisor that I knocked out awakened a bit too early and I stopped for a stupid reason as well...”
Nick took a deep breath and noticed that his leg was bouncing nervously.
“Knockin’ someone out is an art, one ‘m not surprised ya fucked up.” Jonnys tone was matter of fact, lacking any bite despite the words that are harsh.
“‘M sure ya understood how fucked ya were if ya were caught, maybe not t’ the full extent at the time but enough t’ know ya’d lose yer chance, so what was yer oh so stupid reason f’r stopin’?”
He took a swig of the bottle he hadn’t offered to Nick.
“Fair.. But I thought I would do better since I am a doctor. Oh well.” Nick looked down at his hands and squeezed his eyes a few times, then looked away at the bottle. “The reason was a photo of the University before the destruction and The Fire. The photo from the Old world and it felt familiar. I think it was the one I graduated from. Although not sure. I...” The researcher stopped zirself and instead decided to try the beverage again, carefully taking a sip from a bottle and coughing violently again.
He didn’t hide his amusement at Nick's attempts to drink.
“‘Nd how much physical use ‘ave ya had f’r the qualification?”
He thought for a moment about what was said, and immediately decided that’s a stupid thing to do. He was not in the mood for it. “Stupider reasons exist then nostalgia I s’pose.”
“It’s.. It’s not just nostalgia. No one remembers anything from the old world aside from the supervisors, people hardly remember The Fire and no one has any feelings towards the memories from the events during The Fire, which included daily mass executions, hunts, deaths, corpses everywhere, random sparks of utter violence and more. For all of us these memories, if we have them, feel like a regular day. But when I was rescued by Marius and the crew, the violence that I witnessed a bit later left an impact on me. And much later, only recently, while Ivy Alexandria was asking me about my past I realised that all of that was not something normal.” Another careful sip was still going like hell but it was in fact somewhat more bearable.
“Used the mind control shit for that? Ain’t a half bad way t’ end the fun of mass panic. Though people don’t ‘preciate ‘avin’ their brains tampered with f’r any reason do ya?”
He stretched lazily in his seat, “that was interestin’ more intrestin’ t’ others ‘m sure. I say we circle back ‘round t’ that little realisation ya had; ‘bout their reasonin’ f’r downgradin’?”
“We didn’t really know our brains were tampered with, to be honest.” Nick made another sip, this time a bit more than the previous attempts, the burning this time tingled somewhat nicely at the very end and coughing was less of a problem. “Ah, yes, the realisation. Well, you remember the Broken Horses of Ulysses, right? Now that I think about it, what if a similar device was used? Or the same blueprint, because we had some blueprints for technologies from other planets. That would explain why there were the sudden sparks of uncontrollable violence during the very start of The Fire! Maybe they were testing it! And it would also explain the nonchalant attitude towards violence, which we had a lot of in experiments inside The Academy.” The "gears" inside Nick's brains were visibly moving as ze stared at the table in front of him and gestured more and more with zirs hands while unwrapping the train of thoughts. It looked as if the researcher suddenly became alive again.
“But ya know now, ‘nd ‘m sure others ‘ave worked it out seein’ as ya didn’t make it sound like the higher ups were all t’ shocked. Ya mentionin’ the siege of Illium ’nd the city as a wholes pretty damn intreatin’ seein’ as the systems whole usin’ people as data sounds like some bastardised version of the Acheron.”
“I know there were other people who were connected to The System before. When I was connected, for the entire time I was struggling to keep my mind, I knew everything that was in there. The only problem was that it limited what I could think or say, even what I could feel. I was almost dead, I had to recover for a long time after that, even using some walkers temporarily.” Nick started to die out again, becoming quieter and not blinking as ze stared into nothing. “There were wires and chips right under the skin of my face, my scalp, in my spine, and in my neck. I remember the pain of Rasputina Nastya carefully pulling them out of me. I remember the hand that held me until we got to Aurora. And then the IV that I confused with wires when I woke up. And Marius. He was there...” The researcher looked at Jonny and his breath became shallow and fast as ze gripped his own wrist with sudden panic clearly in zirs blurry gaze.
“Life puts ya through shit, ya either die or wish ya did.” Jonny didn’t feel bad for the man infront of him, but he knew unless ze calms down he was not going to get any more from him. “Least tragedy claws out a path f’r beauty, ‘nd I ain’t even talkin’ ‘bout my stander of beauty. Misery gives people an outlook the masses like.”
It was a lode of bullshit, he’d punch someone who told him something like that. But people like flowery talk of how there’s a brightside.
Nick didn’t hear any of the bullshit Jonny was saying, the researcher saw the man’s mouth move but the words were completely different. The whole world but Jonny was blurry, as if Nick was in a tunnel. Sounds mashed together and zirs head was spinning from the hyperventilation.
“Why’s Marius bothering with you?“ slurred and echoed in the researcher’s mind, the voice was as if the man’s before him.
“Marius might throw a tantrum if we got rid of you though. And that would be annoying, wouldn’t it?” another phrase cut through the thick air around.
“No, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, what can I do? I’m sorry-” Nick was crying and his lungs were burning, he kept repeating the same words over and over quietly.
Jonny stared at the scene in front of him, on impulse he reached for his gun; A shot through the head usually is enough to straighten someone up, but he didn’t remove it firmly from his holster before he remembered why that won’t work. It’s annoying that he was so out of practice talking to mortals but he had’t had a reason to do so in person for quite some time.
“Sorry f’r what cause there ain’t a damn point in apologising f’r somethin’ no one else understands,” he knew he was realistically talking to himself right now, but he liked his voice more then the repetitive babble of Nick.
He drained the last of his bottle before smashing it loudly across the table, hoping the shock might be enough to get them back on track.
As soon as the bottle shattered against the table, Nick jumped and immediately tried to balance himself on the chair while breathing heavily, as if ze was saved from drowning. Ze heard his heartbeat in his head and looked with horror at Jonny, trying to get back to senses.
“I’m... I’m so sorry, I- “ Nick looked at his almost full bottle of alcohol and reached for it with trembling hands, drinking a third of it in one go and coughing again, desperately gasping for air, clutching the edge of the table.
“Yeah ya said that ‘bout half a dozen times already so ya can stop now. Or need I remind ya how much it fuckin’ annoys me.”
He pointed the broken bottle at Nick as he talked, which was more threatening than he realised.
The researcher was looking at the bottle intensely.
“Have I.. entertained you enough?” Nick asked with a defeated voice.
He wanted to say no, wanted to keep picking at every little bit, but he knew he needed to think through what he’s been told so far and if he shut down once he was likely to do it again so it’s best to let it go.
“Yeah ‘s good enough f’r now.” He answered slightly huffily.
“You will torture me now?..” Nick asks warily, looking at the gun and at the bottle again.
“Ya want t’ be or somthin’? Most people try t’ avoid the topic in hopes it’ll be forgotten.” Jonny looked at Nick like he was an idiot, because as far as Jonny was concerned at the moment, he was.
“Just.. you said and I.. ‘eed to prepare.. or somethin’..” The alcohol clearly finally hit the researcher’s head. “Because, you know, it’d be fair, ‘m the intruder and annoyin’.. And now borin’..”
“Ya told me most of yer story once, that’s good ‘nough f’r me t’ think ‘bout it ‘nd decided if I want t’ work with it. If I do want t’ work with it ya gonna be asked a hell a lot more. But even if I won't end up workin’ with it Ivy’ll want the information ‘nd give em shit f’r killin’ a first hand source, again. So not borin’ just not with anythin’ at the second. Ya ain’t wrong bout the rest though.”
“Oh.. n’t borin’..” The wave of exhaustion from everything crashed into Nick and he laid zir head on the table with a small “thud”. “That's.. somethin’.” The researcher’s eyes closed and he quickly drifted asleep, going limp.
Jonny laughed.
“Fuckin’ lightweight.”
He pulled his comms out, taking a picture of Nick and sending it to the rest of the crew with a message of “story, don’t touch” before standing up. He was not going to sit around and watch the guy sleep.