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chirp chirp.
chirp chirp.
chirp chirp.
Solar let out a heavy exhale as he rolled over for what felt like the hundredth time that night. There wasn’t anything for him to focus on except for crickets chirping outside his window, but after half a night of listening to them they'd started driving him a little crazy.
Well... there was something else to do.
A minute or so passed by of him just laying there. Debating how far along the chain of events he wanted to go. Until he made his decision and sat up in bed.
He’d decided it was pointless to keep trying to sleep. He knew he wasn’t going to. He’d known he wasn’t going to for about two hours but he still tried for some reason. Maybe he thought he’d get tired enough that he’d just pass out.
Or maybe he thought he’d be able to stop thinking about what was keeping him up.
He unplugged himself from his charger(which was much less complex than it probably should’ve been; Moon had streamlined the process into something not unlike charging a phone)and got up.
His room—or rather, the room in Sun and Moon’s house that he’d wound up calling his even though he never had any of his stuff in it— was nearly pitch black this late at night, save for the shreds of moonlight coming in through the gaps in the blinds. Still, he could make out the vague shapes of the furniture and the unidentifiable lump of whatever-the-hell that Jack had found. If he remembered right, it had a music box in there somewhere? He was zoned out when that was happening.
The bedroom door opened with a slow, quiet creak. It always seemed louder at night.
He left his room, walked out into the living area, and just… stood there. Took in the silence. In the confines of his room it was normal for it to be this quiet. Expected, even. But in the living room it was uncanny.
Not like he was surprised, of course. Everyone in the house was fast asleep this late at night.
Except for Moon.
He didn’t have a clue what Moon was up to.
But that didn’t matter. Everyone was in their rooms, awake or not. No one would see him. No one would follow him where he was going.
The front door was quieter than the ones inside. Just the sound of the latch opening and closing and that was it.
Solar went down to the end of the driveway just to make sure he wouldn’t be heard. Portals weren’t necessarily loud, but they made enough noise and warped enough space-time that they’d probably wake someone up. Dazzle was a light sleeper, after all.
Once he got to the bottom of the driveway, nearing the mailbox, he held his right hand out palm-up and flipped up the little panel on the inside of his forearm, revealing the small dashboard between his endoskeleton and outer casing. It wasn’t very complex appearance-wise—a person who didn’t know what it was probably would think it was a really fancy calculator—but that was all he needed.
A few beeps and boops later and the portal was set.
Solar took one last look at the house and stepped through.
The soles of his boots made a soft thud as they hit the tile floors of the lab. The portal closed behind him, making a shwooping sound as it caved in on itself.
The lab, like everything else at 4 in the morning, was quiet. Although, this quiet was different. The house still felt like it had some life in it even when everyone was sleeping. The evidence of people was there. This place just felt cold. Scientific. Like any evidence of life in here had been wiped out and sterilized.
Except for Moon’s nerdy posters, of course. But he wasn’t supposed to bring that up.
The path to the room was fairly simple. Down the hall past the mana pool, take a right, then a left, into the second door down the hall it led to. He had that memorized.
Finally, he got to his destination. A mostly barren room except for the giant rectangular machine and massive holographic screen projected onto the far wall. No one had used either of them yet so the terminal sat there empty and the screen just glowed a bright cyan as it waited for a prompt.
That was about to change.
He leaned down, looming over the terminal (Moon, in all his noble wisdom, had failed to put a chair here), and starting typing. He new the prompts by heart at this point. If this computer had any thoughts of its own, it probably would too. He'd entered this situation in countless times.
He probably could refine it some, if not to spice things up then to spare them all from the leftover shreds of misfortune, but that wasn't what he wanted.
He didn't want paradise.
He wanted home.
He wanted Sun.
His Sun.
The machine beeped as it accepted the last of his commands. He maneuvered to the side of it, tracing his fingers across its topside, and sat down on the tile. He'd probably end up sleeping here, so why not get comfortable. He'd just tell Moon the usual lie in the morning: that he'd come in for early maintenance on [whatever machine he'd picked longest ago] and that Moon just must not have heard him leave. If him or Monty got suspicious he could wipe the CCTVs. Call it a glitch in the systems.
They didn't have to know, anyways. It's not like he was messing anything up. He was just relaxing, after all.
The cyan screen lit up brighter, fading into white, then into the simulation.
Moon pressed the power button on the back of Sun's head before stepping back from the two models--one glowing, one not-- and looking over at Sun as he crossed his arms. "Transfer's complete."