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“I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Bliss’s tone is confident, reassuring. They refuse to let any doubts they may feel about the reboot slip into their speech—such things benefited no one right now. Bliss glances towards the monitor and the streams of code spilling onto it before they look over to Flint and Sleeper. Bliss gingerly glides towards the two of them, running their eyes over the hardware connected to the two sleepers as one final check before Bliss pulls themselves back towards the terminal.
Bliss fills their lungs with recycled air, taking a conscious effort to ensure their breath is silent, even, and measured. Their hands are steady as they type. Bliss checks every bit of code once, twice, three times before they finally dare to type out the command to both start and finish the process. They check their input once more as they hover their finger above the enter key.
“I’m starting the reboot.” Bliss says as they tap the button. “See you on the other side.”
It takes a moment before the terminal bursts to life with activity. The text streaming across the monitor moves too fast for anyone to comprehend in real time, but despite this Bliss stares at the screen, their brows furrowed and the side of their fist against their mouth as lines of code streak across their vision.
Bliss taps their thumb against the inside of their fist. It was an awful feeling, the waiting. They glance towards the two sleepers and their eyes scan over their frames. There was nothing they could do but hope the cycles of preparation would be enough. They turn their attention back towards the monitor and Bliss’s thumb digs unconsciously into flesh as they stare.
The stream of text begins to slow. They don’t dare move, they don’t dare blink.
A sinking feeling in their chest hits them before their brain fully registers a sudden stream of commands flooding onto the screen. Blood drains from Bliss’s face as a gaggle of new, unexpected processes boot and run without any input from them.
“Shit.” Bliss feels their breath quicken, steady air a far distant memory. Their hands fly to the keyboard, their fingers furiously tapping commands in an effort to slow or stop whatever was happening. “Shit, shit, shit.” They type in tandem while trying to comprehend the flood of new text on the screen, the lines of code multiplying in scope and speed as they furiously try to mitigate what is happening.
Bliss works through the numbness seeping into their fingers. It is an almost out of body feeling, their focus entirely on the task at hand. Their ears pick up noises in the room—stuttering, scraping, thrashing—but such sounds only barely reach Bliss’s consciousness.
Time both slows and accelerates. Then, it stops.
Everything stops.
Bliss stares at the screen. Their fingers are numb and cold, every part of them is numb and cold. Bliss breathes through their mouth as they focus on steadying their breath in an effort fight the dread beginning to seep into them. They don’t dare look over towards the couch—there is enough information on the screen to tell them exactly what they will see if they do.
Reflexively Bliss taps the keyboard and begins to scan through the system log from the bottom up. The further they read the more and more they feel that same cold seep into them.
It’s almost comical how quickly Bliss pinpoints the exact point of failure, the exact moment where the reboot was destined to fail. Bliss feels their face contort—a frown, a smile, a choked back laugh—their expression in flux as they read through the log, the only constant is an undercurrent of rage they are desperately trying to ignore.
They dig their teeth into their fist as they read and reread, tapping up and down through the text as if the force of their key presses could somehow undo what had just transpired. On the third time through they stop right where the unknown processes had begun to run. Their hand hovers just above the keyboard as they stare. Bliss finally blinks, their eyes painfully dry, their vision a bit more blurred the next time they open them.
It dawns on Bliss the reboot wasn’t going to work. It was never going to work.
There was no possible way anyone could have foreseen the multitudes of hidden counter measures buried deep within the very infrastructure of the system unless someone already knew those processes were there. These routines were only discoverable when they were active, and the only thing that could activate them was an outside action being taken to circumvent Essen-Arp’s built-in intellectual property protections, such as, for example, hypothetically, rebooting a sleeper’s frame. But Bliss wouldn’t have known that. They couldn’t have known that. From every bit of information available to them when they were preparing for the reboot it would have been impossible for them to know. But such knowledge brought them no comfort.
Bliss chokes back a laugh, a seemingly inappropriate response from an overloaded sympathetic nervous system trying its best to process the myriad of feelings flowing through them. They realize the first reboot was a fluke. The reboot only “worked” in part because it wasn’t finished. Bliss stares at a specific line of code and they can almost see the exact moment when Serafin’s hand yanked out the cord connected to back of Sleeper’s skull. The fact that Sleeper’s memories were wiped wasn’t a mistake, it was only the first part of an inevitable cascade waiting to hit their system.
They close their eyes as their mind races. Bliss should never have let Flint do the reboot with Sleeper. They should have said no. Why didn’t they say no? They would have lost Sleeper, but if they had done the reboot in sequence maybe they wouldn’t have lost Flint too.
But no. They let them. They facilitated them. Prepped two cables. Two runtimes. Two reboots in parallel. Should they have just lied? Said there wasn’t enough processing power to run both at the same time? Would Flint have believed them? Would Sleeper?
Not like it mattered now. The morbid thought crosses Bliss’s mind as they open their eyes and stare at the monitor. They choke back another laugh—how long ago did their psyche decide such a thing was a proper substitute for tears?
They refuse to tear their gaze from the monitor. Part of them wants to look towards the more material evidence of the failed reboot, but there’s something stopping them. Maybe those tears would come if they did, but the possibility of something far worse and far more destructive spilling from them instead is what keeps Bliss’s attention square in front of them.
A knock at the door shakes them from their thoughts. Bliss takes another deep breath in, counting seconds as they exhale. They try to steady themselves. Another breath. Finally, they push themselves towards the door.
It’s Serafin. Of course it’s Serafin. Who else did they expect? It dawns on Bliss that they had no idea how much time had passed since they had started the reboot, nor did they know how much time had passed since it failed. Serafin starts to speak, certainly to ask about how the reboot went, but he stops himself as soon as he sees Bliss’s face.
White hot shame is all Bliss feels then, but they burn neutrality into their expression before they speak. Their words flow out on autopilot. Bliss doesn’t register the exact words they say, but certainly apologetics are amongst them.
I’m sorry. I did all I could. They’re gone.
The act of keeping their own face so stoic is taking up most of Bliss’s concentration to the point where they don’t exactly register how Serafin responds either. Is there anger in his face? Sadness in his words? Blame in his core? Bliss couldn’t tell. They aren’t sure if they really want to know.
Even when Serafin physically pushes past Bliss their eyes do not follow him into the shop. They know where he is headed and they do not want to see what currently lies motionless at his destination. Bliss instead imagines what he must be doing—pulling Sleeper’s still body close as he tries to grapple with the fact he has lost them for a second, final time.
“I’ll give you some time alone with them,” Bliss says, their voice flat. “I’ll be back later.” To clean up, they cynically want to add, but they don’t dare do so, for both of their sakes.
Bliss isn’t sure how long they absentmindedly glide through Flicker Row. It’s long enough to see some storefronts begin to dim their lights, but not even remotely long enough for them to even begin to process what awaited them back in the shop. Each time they approach the shop they find themselves veering down a different alley. Only when the sight of the same streets begin to repeat and repeat over again does Bliss consider heading back.
They stop outside the shop door and steel themselves for what they will inevitably find inside. Another inhale, another exhale. Finally, they move to open the door and as they peek inside Bliss feels some selfish gratitude in the fact that Serafin is not there. They slowly enter the shop and as they do Bliss catches sight of the two empty frames still strapped to the couch.
The door closes behind them, and Bliss does not tear their gaze away the sight. They say nothing. And, oddly, they feel nothing.
Bliss glides towards the couch and clinically begins to inspect the hardware attached to both of the now empty frames. They run their hands through the cables before they move to inspect the now silent servers nearby. Bliss casually pops out a drive and looks over the piece of hardware. It didn’t look physically damaged, but Bliss knew it was now entirely devoid of data. They silently slot the drive back into the rack.
They make their way back over to the monitor and note the text in the log file is in a different location from when they left it. Serafin must have been scrolling through it too before he left. Bliss wonders how much of the code he truly comprehended.
Bliss stares at the screen as they once again begin to read through the system logs. Sleeper couldn’t have known about the subroutines lying in wait deep within their frame either. How could they have? Because if they knew they wouldn’t have done the reboot the first time. The thought does not bring Bliss any solace.
They tab up and down through the system log, again and again, and with each pass through some type of feeling begins to bubble inside them. Their keystrokes become louder, each subsequent press more aggressive than the last. Bliss taps their other hand on some vacant plastic of the keyboard as they bite their lip hard enough to nearly draw blood.
The feeling they had been working so hard to push down finally spills out of them—red hot rage. They pound their fists against the keyboard before yanking it from the terminal in one swift motion. They slam it against the monitor, striking it repeatedly with the keyboard as keys fly off into the room and the text on the screen flickers with each subsequent impact. But Bliss doesn’t stop. They strike until the monitor goes completely black.
Bliss digs their fingers into the keyboard in their hand as they stare at the blank screen in front of them. Their chest heaves, their body shakes. They focus on their strained and ragged breath. One deep, trembling inhale after another. Finally, they manage to once again push that feeling down. They push everything down.
Slowly, methodically, Bliss begins to collect the keys now scattered and floating throughout the room. They turn each key over in their hand before they slot it back into its proper place on the keyboard one by one. It brings no catharsis, but to Bliss it feels almost routine to pick up pieces they themselves had broken.
They mount the keyboard back in place and as they look up Bliss catches their reflection in the inky black of the monitor. They stare at the distorted image before they physically turn the screen away. Bliss dares to look towards their couch, their feelings numb and distant as they stare at the two lifeless frames below.
Finally, Bliss pushes themselves towards the door. They turn off the lights of the shop as they leave before closing the door behind them.