Archive of Our Own

Puddles of water splash as Hax rushed towards the stone building that his parents used to always talk about visiting.

He drew the lining of his Mom’s oversized faux-fur coat closer together, and buried his head into the collar. The edges of the coat dragged across the wet floor- and Hax keeps nearly tripping over them. 

The strange people, with bright green eyes, kept staring at him. Twitching over and over before turning away and chatting to their friends. Hax shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. He wasn’t allowed to speak to strangers- but if he was, he’d head over, kick them and teach them that it was rude to stare. A few strangers, the ones without the shiny skin or ticking bodies, tried to grab him, spinning a square wired thing between their fingers, promising Hax he’d 'never have to worry again' if he let them insert the thing into him. Their grips bruised him and their eyes leered too long at his Mom’s coat, so Hax pulled away and kept to the center of the road. 

He kept coughing, the air was thicker than it had been in their area of town, and it tasted like ashes. Hax scrunched his nose at the smell of smoke. How people lived in the city was beyond him. 

The stone building wasn’t lit up by advertisements for ‘ender eyes’ or ‘inventory space’, whatever those things meant, unlike the rest of the city. They must have built it during the stone age, Hax decided, and they failed to remodel it. It meant he didn’t get lost in the crowded streets. Its  emptiness stood like a beacon. The closer Hax got, the silenter the world around it turned - not physically. The not-quite-people, who had an official name that kept slipping his mind, continued to whir and hiss. But Hax’s worries, about how he hadn’t seen his parents in a month and lived somewhere else, with different people, drifted from his mind. His heart slowed to a steady beat and he breathed through his mouth. The city taste settled better in his stomach. 

The door slid open as Hax approached it. He stepped forward and out of the rain. The parts of his skin that were wet seared with pain once safe from the hammering. Hax dropped his coat across the chair and stepped up to the lectern at the front. Each step echoed across the building. 

He ran his hands down the leather cover of the book before flicking it open, fingers clumsily skipping the title page and straight to the introduction. This book was supposedly writings from the universe, recorded by the first Save that humanity had managed to bring back. Hax read the first few pages before sighing; flipping further into the book, interested in the story that his parents sent him here to read. 

Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the universe. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear.

It reads our thoughts.

Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely [scrambled] and [scrambled], I wish to tell them that they are [scrambled] in the [scrambled]. They see so little of reality, in their long dream.

Hax squinted at the blacked out passages, wondering what truth the universe thought was beyond them.

The scribbles did not reveal letters and rereading the passage didn’t reveal anything. A star at the bottom of the page commented that the original author had not understood what the ‘universe’ said. But they had made it up. They must have. 

…The book didn’t make sense. Hax wasn’t important enough to come home to, and the world around him wasn’t true with the fake people who ran about. The only good thing it offered was an open building to stay, while he figured out what to do next. 

The Ranked Queue, where he was assigned a seed and paid after, filtered in minty fresh air. Hax took large breaths every time he entered the main room. He held it in his lungs until it turned stale and burnt, savoring it. Hax slid the piedar off his carabiner, unlooped the F3 headset from behind his ears and placed them both on the return stall, before he headed to the moderators with a usb dancing between his fingers. He strode over to Oliver, almost instinctively jogging. 

The man outstretched his hand without looking away from his computer. When nothing dropped into the palm of his hand, he swiveled around his chair to glare at Hax. Hax continued to watch it twist between his fingers. Oliver coughed and Hax’s eyes snapped to look at him. The USB fell flat in the palm of Hax's hand. 

Oliver sighed. “Look, I need that USB and you need the gold. We both know this ends, so just pass it over.”

“You’d look very good with a white fluffy cat on your lap.” Hax blurted. “Okay- uhm." Hax's mind rushed to elaborate "It would bring some livelihood to this place! Yeah. You need a cat to make you less serious you know? A white fluffy cat that you can pet.” 

“Okay…”

“You’ve been paying me less, recently, right? It’s not cool.” 

“I’m acting in the interest of making this fair to everyone, Hax. I’m sorry to pay you less but we reward hard work here. Not… technologically advantageous people.” 

Hax looked down at his prosthetic leg. He’d decided to keep it metallic; partly for the aesthetic partly for the statement of his own abnormality. But mostly because it was cheaper. The morphine and good metal and the whole 'keeping him from bleeding out while missing two limbs' ate into his savings. 

“Oh hell nah. You’re paying me less because of the metal leg?!”

Oliver looked up at Hax’s left arm. 

“And my arm?! You, like, can’t- pay, okay. You can’t pay me less because I’m a cyborg or whatever. That’s got to be discrimination or something.” 

“It’s not discriminatory to pay Save states less.” 

“I’m literally a human though! I have these because I’m not a Save! I have these because I got blown up doing this job! The like, least you could do is pay me like normal. Please. We need this.” 

“We’re on a low budget Hax. It’s not personal. Can you just hand it over.” 

“Isn't there something you can do?” 

“I’m afraid not. But. As long you hand it over, I can make sure you keep getting decent, completable seeds. That’s the best I can do.” 

Hax scoffed but dropped the USB into Oliver’s hands. He grinned, nodded in thanks and rummaged through the drawer of ingots and nuggets. He dropped ten gold ingots and seven nuggets into Hax’s eyes. Oliver’s smile had the decency to wither slightly as Hax counted each ingot, face dropping as he realised how little there was. 

“Okay, I got paid better when I was barely making the deadlines. This- you’re joking.” 

“We can’t prove the additional speed isn’t due to, you know. This is the best I can do for you Hax. Really. I’d help if I could.” 

“You can look at the records! I’ve slowed down. I’m slower with these things. You know that.” 

Oliver rolled his eyes and gestured for a moderator to open the exit door. The moderator did so, then grabbed Hax by his flesh arm, digging their fingers so hard it’d bruise, and threw him onto the concrete ground.

The metal clunked against it. Hax sat up and ran his finger down its edges, scoffing when he realised it’d been scratched. His fingers whizzed as he manually moved every joint, then Hax relaxed. It was all functional. He looked at measly gold that fell between his fingers. There wasn’t much he’d be able to do if Ranked had destroyed his prostheses. He pushed himself up, and began to walk into the mouth of the Ranked City.

And he immediately stumbled forward, his head spinning and his his flesh leg falling numb as the adrenaline from running decided just then to leave his body. The job would be better named as ‘sprinting’ with how everyone was forced to push their legs past the limit. Only years of practice and proper technique being hammered into him stopped the muscles tearing. The prosthetic didn’t withstand the pressure either. Each step audibly winced as the joints squeaked from overuse. The stump tingled, like popping candy had been freed into his bloodstream. 

No one looked twice as Hax limped to the edges of the city, where he, Rowl, and Mongey lived. Men in business suits hurried in and out of corner stores for energy drinks. Good runners, and even some of the top runners who’d been given a dangerous or far seed, sprinted back to the Queue. Most of the Saves in the vicinity would fry themselves wondering about the implications of a man with metal limbs, so their eyes glided right past Hax, unable to comprehend the potential danger of his existence. He tried not to blame any of them. If he saw himself, he didn’t think he’d blink twice either. 

The journey to his apartment stretched on and on until Hax was at the door. He tried the handle, and rolled his eyes when the door swung open. They’d installed a lock but never used it since ‘one of us is always home’, according to Rowl, and ‘I’d hope you’d both be able to kidnap some fucking robber who walked in.’ 

Hax slid his shoes off and headed straight to the living room. It was lit by a flickering red light, with orange fairy-lights hanging across the walls where the lightbulb didn’t reach. It smelt like burnt chicken and oil - which oozed between the curtain that separated the space from Rowl’s Save operating room. He and Mongey stood beside a set of computers, whispering to each other. The walls in the house were thin, and while their neighbors were nice enough, some things weren’t worth the risk. 

Silence filled the room as Hax’s prosthetic leg clinked and the thigh disconnected from his knee, sending him straight to the ground. His hand shot out- blindly searching for the desk, hoping his flesh would allow him to redirect his fall to a chair, but instead grasped overhanging papers and fell to the floor. 

Mongey and Rowl both turned from the center of the room and hurried over to Hax. "Shit." Mongey lifted him up, while Rowl bent down to ensure no screws fell out. Hax leaned against Mongey and stumbled to the sofa, collapsing onto its scratchy, slightly oil-stained cushions. Mongey sat beside him and Rowl remained standing, overlooking them both. 

“Dude. How far did they send you today.” Rowl asked.

“It wasn’t that far.” Hax yawned. “It was like, a couple thousand blocks or so. Shitty terrain though, like across those hills. If I’d realised where I was heading earlier I could have avoided them but that detour takes me across so many more blocks. It was like, it was such a stupid seed.”

“We can talk about this after Hax has his leg attached again.” 

Rowl frowned at the prosthetic that he was cradling in his arms. The silence drew on for a second too long. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to attach this immediately. I don’t fucking think it’d still work even if i do. Something fucking dented the magnetic curve that connected the thing." The ball mimicking the knee joint allowed half the leg to hang loose, although it usually remained attached. “Yeah, a few thousand blocks doesn’t damage this. I modeled this after Mongey’s leg, with minor adjustments, obviously, and Mongey’s standing, still.” 

Hax tilted his head away from Mongey and buried it in his shoulder. He took a deep breath, “Mongey has that faux skin protecting it. That’s probably why. I, like, chose to risk the model because I thought, like I thought I’d be fine- but- obviously I’ve been having bad seeds and took more hits than I thought.  It happens. It happens. I’ll do whatever you guys need around the house till it’s fixed and make sure I’m not running late again.” 

“But you weren’t running late.” Rowl said.

Hax opened his mouth to argue. He’d been hoping that maybe he’d pick up the speed and start earning back his old rates before Rowl realised they weren’t building up savings as quickly as imagined. 

“And don’t try to kid me with that fake skin bullshit. Mongey has that because it makes him look human - which makes the investors happier and now we all play by the code like we don’t know better. But you don't have to worry about bacteria in these things, which is what your skin actually protects you.” The words rushed out of Rowl’s mouth, straight from a sharpner. “Don’t just make stuff up. It makes you look stupid.” 

“No, no, it's weird. I don’t know why I broke it. The skin was just like, my guess. You’re the technical expert here! I don’t want to step on your toes. I thought it was because, because, okay, you know when you hurt yourself and then next time you hurt yourself it’s worse because it hadn’t fully healed, my legs like that right?” 

“That doesn’t explain why you lied about being late.” 

“Oh my god. Rowl, we were just talking about Ranked getting harsher. Things  probably changed since you last ran and it’s hard to suddenly fail, especially right now.” Mongey quietly said, when Hax didn’t reply.  “Can we all like, take a minute to chill out.” 

"Bro." Rowl's fingers twitched on Hax's leg. “I haven’t heard anyone but you two get paid less…" Their lips pressed in a thin line that only half-succeeded at hiding his grimace. "Nevermind. I’m going to fix this. Make sure he’s okay Mongey.” 

Rowl turned on his heel and sped out of the living  room, roughly rubbing his eyes as they left, the leg clanking as it was shifted into one arm. The curtains rumpled as he pushed through them to get into the office. Through the thin walls, Hax and Mongey heard a warble before the bang of metal landing on a hard surface.

Hax’s window screeched as he pulled the battered frame up. He slipped a leg through the small gap, then another, and slid down through the small gap until he was crouched on the landing of the emergency staircase. It rattled and shook under his weight. He grabbed the dented handlebar, despite how it had absorbed the bitter air and bit the palm of his hand. It wasn’t going to collapse under him. The old thing withstood tens of people, Hax included, jumping onto them at top speeds every day. Hax let go of the bar and closed his window. Mainly, because he didn’t want the winter air to sneak into the perpetually cold apartment. Rowl not being able to immediately figure out where he went was a secondary benefit. 

From the second floor of their apartment, Hax could watch as the vendors took down their tin roofs and the majority of Saves made their way back home from fourteen hour shifts at technology factories. They filled the streets like a dull parade, knocked over pans, then freaked out at the dead bats amongst the stew. The following week, when the police had hung around the lower ends of Ranked to make sure no ‘unsavory’ behavior continued, had been the only time the smell of bat meat stew didn’t waft over the town. As Hax climbed up to the third floor, the smell lessened, slightly. 

Hax reached the top floor, where the stairs stopped. It wasn’t high enough. He reached for the metal pipe, dug his fingers into the nail screws, pulled his feet onto the bracket and climbed up. 

His fingers curled around the eave of the roof and started to pull himself up. A firm hand grabbed his forearms and tugged Hax onto the concrete of the roof. He looked up to find Mongey a step away holding onto him. Hax swung his leg round the edge and pushed himself up. Mongey stayed a step away, so Hax closed the distance and wrapped his friend in a hug. 

“I didn’t think you’d be up here.” Hax said. 

“No. I like coming up here… ” Mongey slowly pulled away but shuffled so he stood to Hax’s left side. “It’s quiet.” 

From so high, the crowd of Saves seemed small, little dots, automated wind-up toys. He turned to ask Mongey what he thought, but shame burnt in Hax’s gut and he swallowed it down. Hax turned to the moon instead, which slipped through Ranked’s neon green lights. The city illuminated itself at night with an eerie glow that had no source but radiated everywhere.  If the world hadn't made Hax skeptic of dreams, he'd imagine it a force field, which protected Ranked from the monsters and melted into the sun. But the city, or most of its citizens, never slept. 

The wind pressed against Hax, and he curled around his chest. His prosthetic didn’t help much, as the cold sunk into the metal, but his thick coat was a good barrier and the pressure was nice. 

Mongey stared at Hax, pressing his lips into a thin line and hands curling, then uncurling, into fists. He hadn’t changed out the T-shirt that he wore while running. 

“Do you- you don’t feel cold right?” Hax asked. 

“Nah. Probably the only good thing to come out of all this.” 

“The extra endurance and strength is good though?” 

“I guess?” 

“I think, well, okay, you don’t sweat either. Like, it takes me a while until this thingy.” Hax raised his prosthetic leg- in case Mongey had forgotten. “Starts to hurt but that’s only because I, uh, I still feel phantom pain.” 

“Yeah.” 

Mongey sat down on the center of the roof. He folded his legs. Hax lowered himself to join Mongey. Hax stared at Mongey. His skin was porcelain smooth, except for the metal bolts that peaked out from under his hair and uneven plates. A wire peaked out from the cracks and Mongey had curled it behind his ear with his pink hair. 

“What are you doing up here Hax?” Mongey asked. 

Hax shrugged. “Could ask you the same thing.” 

“They don’t get it, do they?” 

“Yeah. But Rowl’s trying his best.”

“It’s like, whatever. I didn’t ask for this. But it is this and I have to live with all, this.” 

“Yeah. Yeah.” 

Hax reached for his prosthetic hand, pulling at the clearly metal fingers. They didn’t have callouses anymore. Did Mongey miss things like that? “I don’t even get why the officials don’t y’know. Like all this. It just seems like a waste.”

Mongey twitched at the word waste. “Oh.” 

Hax rested his head on Mongey’s shoulder, “I didn’t mean it like that. You know, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“It’s just, hypocritical. We have all these basic Saves, clones, whatever on the field and they’re working for pennies in the factories but this is where we draw the line? We could be living in like, uh… like in  palaces right now, if there wasn’t this obsession with keeping us at work.”  

Mongey wrapped his arm around Hax’s shoulder. It ran warm, and its fan wasn’t humming. “Yeah.” he said, quietly. Hax didn't think he believed him. 

The steady presence soothed the pulsing anxiety that ran through his nerves. Hax tugged the top of his scarf up his face and closed his eyes. The streets emptied out, as the Saves shut their doors and their lights turned on in sync. Still, he could hear the buzz as the few humans left adjusted their music or whispered secrets in alleys that squeezed their guts and high quality microphones. 

“Do you think we had a choice in coming back?” Mongey spoke into the open air. Leaning his weight onto Hax's side and shifting his legs like he wanted to curl up until his joints rusted.

“Huh? I mean, I didn’t really come back but, yeah.” 

“But. They had it all ready to go. We could have just ordered you in.” Mongey shook, “There’s no real way of knowing there’s not a copy of us down there, living separate lives and…” 

“Then it’s not really us is it?” 

Mongey shook his head, “I don’t know.” 

“You’re being really philosophical about this. You’ve thought about this a lot.”

Mongey nodded. 

“I mean. Okay, so, like the way I see it, is that we have a choice in dying. And we’ll choose it someday, when all this is boring or something, but that’s not right now, you know. That data is just there in case we ever die before we’re done. And if they use it before or after, or whatever, there’s all those failsafes that Rowl took out. So they’re just poor copies really.” 

Hax snuck his hand up his metal arm as he spoke, before hesitantly reaching for Mongey’s. When Mongey didn’t pull away, he traced his finger around the bump in his plates, digging his finger into the sharp edges. Mongey smiled and his shoulders relaxed slightly as he squeezed Hax. 

“They’d probably look more human.”

Hax laughed. “You think you’d avoid damages if you worked at a factory instead. I mean, you probably don’t, but it’s all just heavy machinery and strength. Only real difference is the pay and amount of sightseeing we get to do.” 

“Oh. Yeah. That's true.” 

“When I die, do you think they’ll keep these?”

“Hmm?”

“My prosthetics. I mean, I think they’re cool. Do they look into your mind while making cosmetic changes?”

“I dunno… I guess you’d keep them. Most of my scars stayed. But then all that stuff about not knowing you’re dead might be a problem if you look like that… Since, you know, most people would be dead.” 

“I guess we’ll find out when I die.” 

“Yeah… I think, if I get crushed or whatever, I think I want you guys to let me go.” 

“Really?” 

Mongey nodded, “I mean. I can’t force you. I don’t even know if Rowl would listen but, I don’t want to live like this. I’m not, I don’t know. I’m this in between thing and I just don't like this awareness of it.” 

“We could just leave that part of your code in?” 

Mongey shook his head, “Nah. Then it wouldn’t be me.”  He smiled and stood up, “Besides, I think we have a while before that happens. You guys will make sure of it.” He headed down to the pipe. “You coming as well?” 

Hax shook his head. The city felt far from so high, but smog and the scent of rotting fruit still sat on his tongue like home. He’d thought a lot about his potential Save state in the weeks following the accident before pushing it out of his mind. His prosthetic sleeve seemed to dig into his stump arm and leg and weigh down his body. The copy wouldn’t worry about that but they’d remember the weight, miss it like Hax missed his limbs. Hax sighed and let the wind blow through his hair. 

They’d figure it out, together. Things just needed more time to settle, right? Then they could all move on from everything.

Mongey blinked out of tentative death and into a second chance.  His feet shifted, scruffing the metal plating on the concrete table further. He whined and one hand mechanically raised itself to cover his eyes from the fluorescent light above him. Rowl pulled the lamp away, scratching the wooden floor, which makes a screeching noise that makes them both wince. Mongey whines again and Rowl scampers from three steps across the room back to Mongey’s side. They ran a hand through Mongey’s hair. It laid flat, smooth and clean on Mongey’s head, so unlike the greasy hair Mongey had left with the previous day. His fingers glided through it and Rowl swallowed. These things took time to calibrate, they were certain. 

“Uhm.” Mongey groaned, his arms mechanically moving, the cogs inside his body clunking into place since the heart hadn’t fully beaten oil around the body yet. His body hissed as the overuse overloaded the start-up system and the emergency fans kicked into gear. Rowl should have forced him back down. Mongey pushed himself up, and blinked several more times to stall as his brain flitted through files of videos to ground himself. “Rowl?”

The words were off, in this Mongey’s mouth. They quietened down the edges, clipped the ‘o’ too short. A rock dropped from Rowl’s heart, ping ponged through their ribs and landed in his stomach. 

“Mongey.” 

Mongey nodded. Good, good. The edges of the rock disintegrated but still sat heavy. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Rowl trailed off. What was he even saying? “You’re Mongey.” 

“I know.” 

“Uh. How do you feel?” 

“Like I’m going to die. Was the world always this bright?” 

“What do you mean?”  The operation room was the brightest part of the flat, since mistaking one wire for the other could cause a Save to fail and need complete rebuilding, or dropping a microchip into the thick water could destroy the data and code. But besides the three bright lamps for such tasks, the room was darker than the city at night. 

“There’s this glow in the centre of my eyes. It wasn’t there before, and everything's kind of  blurry” Tears formed in his eyes. Mongey wiped them away, smoother. The hissing quietened. Rowl leaned forward and wiped the other eye before Mongey could move. Better to be safe than sorry. Saves tended to be fragile in this state. Mongey pinched his eyebrows at the movement before relaxing them. He pushed Rowl away. 

“I’m fine. Really.” Mongey said. 

Rowl swallowed. “Are you sure?” 

Mongey nodded. 

“Well, my co-workers say these things can go wrong. We can’t afford, we can’t afford to purchase another copy of you.” 

“I’m good. It's all good.” 

To prove his point, Mongey pushed himself up. His knees buckled and clicked but stayed up right. Rowl shuffled close to him, holding one arm outstretched just in case Mongey fell. He wouldn’t be able to hold the hunk of metal like he could with the flesh and bone but they could soften the fall at least. They walked side by side out of the operation room, into the main living space. 

The one third kitchen, one third living room, one third office, was a bombsite. Puddles of cold water trailed from the kitchen sink. Stacks of paper sat on the desk, alongside three coffee mugs and two bowls of soup. Hax lied on the sofa, snoring in the corner. Mongey’s eyes traced around the room, flitting between it all. Then he stepped on the broken nail that had been there for months. He stumbled forwards but caught himself with several small steps. Rowl fluttered his hands around Mongey. They grazed against his shoulder once, to find it lukewarm to touch. 

“I’m good. Just, caught me by surprise.” 

“Does it hurt? I can check for damages, I just move Hax from the sofa. I should have warned you it was there, stupid. I’ll check for any damages.” 

“It doesn’t hurt.” 

“No, it hurts a shit ton when you step on it.” 

Mongey shrugged. “I feel fine.” 

“You do not feel fine.” 

“Can we just get me to a bed? I want to sleep?”

“You just-”

“Somewhere comfortable. This is all a lot right now.” 

Right, Rowl nodded over and over like a bobblehead toy. Of course this would be a lot for Mongey. They needed to think about this in terms of  a baby just having twenty or so years of knowledge blasted into their head. A baby in the form of Mongey. Fuck.

They continued through the house, up the stairs. Mongey hummed along to the same songs he always had under his breath; Rowl only heard it because he was so close. They headed straight to Mongey’s room, where he collapsed on the bed, and rolled into the same position Mongey always slept in. Bile rose in Rowl’s throat. It burnt when they swallowed it down. A draft blew through the window. Rowl shivered. Mongey stayed still, not even pulling the covers closer to him. 

“You don’t need to watch me sleep.” 

“I wasn’t going to.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

Rowl’s body stumbled out of Mongey’s room against his will. He shut the door behind him. It felt like a bucket of iced water doused Rowl as he stood still, shivering and stuck. 

They didn’t know how long they stayed outside Mongey’s door. The creaks and clinks had silenced once the save state fully loaded into use, silencing any loud sign that Mongey was alive to that of a heartbeat. 

A tap on their shoulder. Rowl jumped an inch out of their skin. Hax stood in front of him. The squeak building in his throat dissipated before it could turn into a scream. Hax frowned and waved a hand over Rowl’s face. “Earth to Rowl? Earth to Rowl.” 

“I’m here. I’m here.” Rowl muttered. 

Hax nodded. “I’m guessing you got Mongey working?” 

“Yeah. He’s sleeping right now.” 

“I thought… Saves don’t sleep right?” 

“That’s what he said he needed.” 

Hax nodded. He grabbed Rowl’s hand and began to pull him towards the box room designated for him. “How long have you been awake? It’s gotta be close to like, thirty or something. I think you can also do with some going to bed.”

“But, what if something goes wrong?”

“Um, I’ll handle it okay.” 

“Don’t you also need to sleep? You also need a nap.”

“I just had one.” 

“Well," Rowl opened his mouth to argue further, but fell short. His brain was buffering on him, it wasn’t meant to do that, A series of stammers left his mouth. By the time Rowl managed to realise he had to try and find a reasonable response, one Hax wouldn’t have a quick comeback for, they were already sitting on their bed. He opened his mouth,"wake me up if anything goes wrong.” 

“Okay.”

He blinked and Hax pulled the blanket curtain closed. Darkness enveloped the room. It was far enough from the rest of the house that the humming of the lights finally vanished. When Rowl fell asleep, he didn’t even realise. 

The main issue arose three days later. Hax scrambled to put on his running gear, attaching the communicator to his belt while Mongey grabbed the spare from the desk. Rowl buried his head deeper in the paperwork, shuffling different requests for jailbreaking on old saves against cosmetic surgeries on priority and price. They had to balance it right. Take on a few quick, expensive jobs to pay back the loan on Mongey, while making sure his contacts remained happy so the steady stream of tedious, undervalued work remained. 

“You can’t go out. You’ve been reported dead! Then they'll send- you’ll be sent to one of those- one of those factories! You can help Rowl out or something!” Hax whispered, the words tripping over themselves. Rowl perked up at the word dead and swirled around. 

Mongey tucked the communicator into his pocket. “I’ll die again if you don’t let me leave. This is torture, being cooped up in here.” His words dragged out, quiet, and Rowl bit down on his cheek. He wasn’t going to cave the second Mongey sounded like himself again. 

“And let you get arrested or destroyed instead?” 

“I’ll say reports of my death had been exaggerated." 

“Have you seen the amount of-” 

“Well, we had to hand your body into the morgue, unless you wanted to look like a fourteen year old version of yourself.” 

The room fell silent. 

“I’m not deaf you know.” Rowl said, at Hax and Mongey’s open mouths. “I do listen to you. Hax is right, by the way. You can’t run right now.” 

Hax broke out into a grin and skipped out of the room. Mongey followed Hax until he vanished around the corridor and the door audibly slammed. 

“You did not just side with Hax over me.”

“Right now. I said right now, If I can get your files deleted from the morgue, or get someone else to do that, we won’t have a problem with you being reported dead in the same way.” 

The anger dropped out of Mongey. His shoulders fell, his face softened and he sighed. He shuffled over to Rowl and leaned on the table besides him, so they wouldn’t need to speak as loud. This close, Rowl could see the faint metal lines that marked where the fake skin had been welded on. He sighed, it was a small detail, as noticeable as the humming they knew would start when Mongey pushed the mechanical body to  its limit: clear to those who knew how to look. But they refused to go back on their words now. If Mongey noticed how his  shoulders tightened, he didn’t react. 

Rowl pushed the files off their desk and pushed the chair towards the computer section of the desk. Four monitors lined the wall. Three were connected, while one sat alone with a massive box of servers rewiring its IP so it bounced across the city. Rowl booted up that computer, typed in a string of numbers and letters, before it lit up with a simplistic home screen. 

“Do you remember those first few hours you were with us? Before the jailbreaking?” 

Mongey hummed, “A bit. It’s like I was high, but also deep underground. If that makes sense.” 

It didn’t really. “Do you remember if you knew about all this?” 

“I was more concerned about holding it together so I didn’t bluescreen while you and Hax swore and panicked about what to do with me.” 

“It’s okay.” They murmured, “I’m sure plenty of people get Saved every day. They probably didn’t poke around your head and find out all these secrets.” Rowl forced a smile and huffed with pride when Mongey chuckled at his self-assurance. They were doing a believable job at being calm. 

The government morgue files were not easy to hack into. Partly because Rowl was not a hacker. The main code he operated had been perfected, and the skill of removing it taught by trade. Practise models cost too much though, and his reputation as modifying saves was more important than his theoretical coding skills. They were also hard to hack into because Essempi had a vested interest in cyber warfare. If Ranked City’s government was easy to hack into, there would  be no reason to send foot soldiers to retrieve the bodies of one in a dozen Saves in hopes they held the secrets to the universe and everything in it. 

The ease came with being based in Ranked, and some clients Rowl had brought a few years back for a trial run. The hack clients only worked once, as they were easy to discover in the system, but they were fast enough for a one and done job. 

Once in, Rowl navigated through simply named files before deleting the PDF marked as ‘Mongey’, exiting the website, powering it off and shutting down the systems. 

“It was that simple?” Mongey asked, leaning over the desk. 

“Yes. Now we wait a few days, make sure we don’t get arrested, and you’ll be good to go.” 

“Soo, I won’t be sent to the factories if I’m seen in Ranked now?” 

“You shouldn’t be. Unless you're stupid.” 

Mongey wrapped his arms around Rowl’s shoulder. The weight was soothing, but too heavy and distributed oddly. Rowl pushed Mongey away, glad he’d been twitchy when they first met. They just needed time to adjust to all the new oddities. They glowed, drawing Rowl’s eyes to them, when he remembered Mongey wasn’t flesh. It’d only get worse as the skin wore down over months of use. But people would have to be looking, the Ranked officials wouldn’t be for a while. And despite Mongey’s concerns, Saves were made for the factories, its towering pipes and frigid air conditioning. 

Hax breaks out of the swirly haze of floating when vomit rises in his throat. It burns through his esophagus and the small chunks of soup he doesn’t remember eating push against his throat. He has enough mind to fall forwards, dangling off the sofa he’s lying on and throwing up on the hardwood floor. The yellow clumps keep coming and coming, it tastes disgusting, sour and bitter. Hax whines as he begins to gag but nothing immediately follows. Saliva built in his throat, so he spat it out, hoping the churning would follow with it. 

A gentle hand pushed Hax, so he lay back on his side. The same hand placed a plastic cup of water to his lips and Hax greedily swallowed it. He lied back down, trailing his tongue around the insides of his mouth, pleased the worst of the taste was washed away. Sleep pulled at his eyelids, so Hax closed them.

The shapes in front of Hax’s eyes kept dancing. Green and pink flitted in and out of his vision, sometimes consuming it, sometimes not. He blinked over and over, which usually chased the sleep out of his eyes, but the colours didn’t settle.

Hax reached out for them, blindly out-stretching his arm. His body didn’t shift to accommodate the change of weight. Hax frowned and rolled over so his arm could reach further. He fell onto the floor. The world banged, his back met with a force and he instinctively winced waiting for pain that never came. 

Hax giggled, before the shapes came back and pushed him back. 

They didn’t reach for his left arm. Odd. Hax reached out towards the shapes with both arms, but only made contact with wool with one hand. Odder. Still, he knew a green guy who wore soft clothes made out of things like cotton. “Rowl.” Hax said. 

The green shape started to form into a human body, now Hax knew what it was, and connected to the beige sweater to form a continuous thing. “Hax. Are you in pain right now?” 

Hax shook his head. He felt the opposite of pain right now. The world had taken form again, even if the edges were blurry, but the floaty feeling of waking up still lingered. “I feel great.” 

The pink blob, Mongey, Hax was quite certain that it was Mongey, whispering something that fell away like waves of the ocean.

Rowl moved out of Hax’s sight, before he sighed. Hax turned around to see Rowl release the bridge of their nose from where he’d been pinching it. “He pulled it out.” 

“He seems fine?” 

“Yes. Well, that could be because of the morphine… We are running out.” 

“I don’t need morphine.” Hax said, pushing himself off the floor. His right leg collapsed under the weight of his apparently numb left leg. He tried again, and fell back onto the couch. Mongey settled down beside him. 

“We’re going to have to lower your dose anymore.” Mongey said, looking towards the opposite side. Rowl appeared again from the same direction, holding a needle between his fingers. Hax stiffened before his muscles loosened against his will. He eyed the needle. 

“You sure you need that?” 

“Yes. It is the IV, after you threw up everything we got one. Although, if you are staying awake… I will go see if we have any cans of soup left.” The needles vanished and Rowl strode into the kitchen.  

Before the soup could finish, the energy for awareness vanished. Hax yawned and shuffled down the sofa, throwing his legs over Mongey’s lap. He’d just close his eyes until the soup arrived…

Hax knew he'd woken up since the explosion. The vague memories of incomprehensible arguments between Rowl and Mongey, or a cold hand pressing against his forehead before reading his temperature to two decimals pressed in the corner of his mind. This time, the world was sharp, lights too bright, noises too loud and Hax was too weak, too shaky to pull himself into a ball to escape it all. The worst part was the pain. A persistent tingling, uncomfortable warmth and electric shocks consumed the rest of his mind not focused on the overwhelming world around him. 

A box of mild painkillers sat on the table. Hax grabbed one and threw two pills in his mouth dry. 

The world dimmed too, something manageable, the aftershocks of the burns faded into the background. 

“Mongey? Rowl?” Hax called. He moved his arms to the bottom of the sofa, but only felt the coarse worn fabric on one hand. He swallowed and looked down, only to find his left arm cut off at the shoulder. Bile rose in Hax’s throat. He swallowed it. 

He had one arm, rather than both. That meant he was alive. He breathed and felt his lungs expand, no tell tale rattling. Hax was alive. He needed to count his blessings. 

The curtain to the operating room opened. Rowl stepped out, a hunk of cylindrical metal in their hands. They placed it on the table and sighed. 

“Why are you bringing work into the living area? That was like, literally one of your rules, when you set the area up?”

“They’re for you.” Rowl said, untangling the tubes to reveal a metal arm. “We’ll have to work on the aesthetics of them all but I guessed you’d want to be alive for that. Mongey suggested we painted your nails, as a treat.” 

Hax couldn’t help but smile at the final comment. “Did anyone else,” he asked. “Is there anything else I need to know?” 

“You also lost your left leg. Considering the damage of the area we found you in, we are considering it lucky. A few newer runners didn’t come back from that day, but no one’s close enough to them to know. Maybe the bad pay turned them away. But all of HBG and Spoingus are fine. They all got your message.” 

“And the microchip?”

Rowl looked away, messing with the prosthetic. “I have it. Do you mind if we try it out? I’ll get a better understanding of the fit now you’re awake.” 

“Well, pass it over then.” 

The world swayed slightly under Rowl’s feet as he approached the bar, ordered by his friends to return with whatever the cheapest drinks on the menu were. They’d ordered them four times already but the exact words kept slipping his mind. He and Hax had ordered it every time, while Mongey got beer. There was a specific beer- but the thought slipped through their mind like mud. The lights in the bar were blinding, a pale blue in theme of the bar’s name, ‘The Diamond.’ 

Rowl gripped the oak desk and stared at the fridge, hoping the bottles and cans would jog their memory. It didn’t. A smallish guy, whose nametag said ‘Max,’ scurried up to Rowl, a holographic pad- chat- hovering under his hand. He shoved the proof of it under the table, leaned against the counter and asked, “What can I get you today?”

“Max, uh, uhm. I don’t remember what we just ordered. Fuck- could you could look up on your chat?” 

“Sure, I’d need your table number and name… And if I do that for you, I can’t offer you guys a discount on me. It’d be my staff discount.” 

Rowl scrunched his eyebrows, “But we aren’t staff.” 

Max laughed and slid a pad of paper across the bar. It was stained yellow from spilled glasses of bear and the writing had begun to bleed through, but the IGN ‘MaxGGs’ was clear to read. 

“What’s this for?” 

“Oh you know, that guy on your table, with the blue hair, I’d really appreciate it if you could pass this on for me.” Max winked, before pulling away from the table, “Unless he’s one of yours, in which case, forget I said anything, I didn’t really mean any of it.” 

Rowl huffed and slid the piece of paper into his pocket. They wouldn’t show it to Hax, unless his friend suddenly developed an interest in the bartender, but there was no harm in playing along, especially if it got them cheaper drinks. 

Max sagged from relief. “Awesome. Now what can I get for you three?” 

“3 of whatever you have cheapest, but make two of them fruity, please. Enough to ignore the taste of alcohol.” 

Max nodded and grabbed three glasses and placed them under the taps, filling all three with draft beer. Rowl scrunched his face until a bottle of syrup  was tipped into two of the glasses until they turned a dark purple. 

Max grinned, “Now, do you guys have a tab open with us, or are you paying directly?” 

“I’ll pay by tab.” Rowl said, grabbing all three glasses off the sticky bar and wrapping their arms around them. “It should be under Rowl.” He turned around and headed straight back to the table, not waiting to hear if their tab was actually under Rowl’s name. That would be Max’s problem if it wasn’t but he didn’t hear anyone yelling after him, so it was probably fine. 

Back at the table, Rowl slid Hax and Mongey their respective drinks before taking a long sip of his own. It was bitter, the sharpness of the alcohol mixing poorly with the sweetness of the syrup, like someone had added several tablespoons of sugar to piss. It was disgusting, but cheap and doing its job because it definitely tasted worse at the start of the night. Under the dim lights, it looked black, and maybe Rowl was drinking tar? Didn’t some saves drink oil? 

“Mongeyyy,” Rowl said, planting himself on the table but unable to push himself forwards, “Do you get drunk off of oil?”

“What sort of question is that?”

Rowl furrowed his eyebrows, because the question had made sense right? He wasn’t that drunk, surely. He struggled to move his hands back towards him, so they could make vague hand gestures that didn’t communicate much, since they mainly moved in circles. “It’s like, well, most things that run on cogs and like, they require oil. So…” 

Hax nodded along, “Yeah, like, if I poured oil into my arms, they’d get really slick and I think I wouldn’t be able to control them! Like what Rowl’s doing right now!” 

“Like I’m doing what now?” 

“Would your systems get all funny Mongey? Oh, hey, that rhymes!” 

“Oh my god… Why don’t you order oil at the bar find out huh?”

“No no, because your average save doesn’t even know what alcohol is and you’re, you’re Mongey.” 

Rowl took another swig of his drink. When he placed it back down, it sloshed against the table.  Mongey slid it out of arm's reach and laughed when Rowl tried to reach for it again to find nothing. Across the bar, a group of other top runners banged against the pool table, whooping and cheering, loudly enough to drown out Rowl’s own thoughts and bang against the base of his head. The drinks seemed to shake on the table. They quietened down as fast as they’d started.  

“I can get drunk.” Mongey said, raising his glass of uncontaminated beer, “Just because I’m not as wrecked as you are, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” 

Hax flicked towards Mongey, “I thought you couldn’t get drunk.” 

“Why- do you think I’ve been ordering these drinks and pouring them onto the floor? You know I can eat if I want too? The same applies with alcohol.” 

“Sorry, what are we talking about again?” Rowl asked. His head ached and the hammering inched away as the bustle of the bar settled back down to overly loud patrons. 

“How I can get drunk. Hax thought I was just wasting our ingots.” Mongey said. At the same time, Hax swooned on the back of his chair, tilting on the back legs, dangerously close to falling on the floor. He said, “How absolutely dreadful it is that Mongey has to order pure piss while oil would get him hammered like you or me because the world just hates saves and cyborgs like us.” 

“That is not what we were talking about?!” Mongey said loudly that a few of the nearby tables turned to stare. “We are moving on from me getting drunk on oil. It’s rude to remind me about it. I’ll… I’ll have you both arrested for discrimination.” 

Hax dissolved into giggles and Mongey joined in, chuckling. 

Rowl didn’t understand the joke. He stared down at his two very human hands with enough intensity that started to shake and had he always had such a long such a deep heartline? Just as Mongey and Hax’s giggles began to fade into the bolster of the room around him, something wet dripped down the side of Rowl’s noise. It was ticklish and he wiped it away. 

“Are you crying?” Hax shouted softly. 

Rowl was crying? 

Mongey’s chair screeched against the wooden floor. He sat beside them and slowly tilted their head and hummed. It sounded like Mongey’s hum, low and airy. Okay, Rowl was definitely crying now.

“You good?” Mongey asked. “I can go pay for the tab and get you a glass of water and we can head home. It’s not really fun at this time of night, and we don’t really suit this sort of place do we?” 

“Yeah, yeah, uhm. Don’t send Hax! Don’t send Hax to pay for the tab! There was this bartender. I don’t remember who. He gave me his number for Hax in exchange for cheap drinks and I didn’t. Is that bad? I should have given Hax his number, hang on…” Rowl started to rummage through his pocket and passed over a crumpled, blank receipt to Hax. “There. Okay. I’m sorry. He and Hax would probably be cute if he’s normal about the whole cyborg thing.” 

Hax took the blank receipt and took Rowl by the arms and guided them out of the diamond without saying a word. The fresh air blew at their faces, making them jump. The warm haze that had settled over Rowl faded enough for him to blink back the tears and pull away from Hax. He promptly stumbled over a gap on the pavement. 

Hax grabbed him and pulled them close. “Neither of us are sober enough to be walking right now.” He said, “We’re going to wait for Mongey and then he’s going to give you a piggyback or something.” 

“I do not need a piggyback.” Rowl said, “I’m fine.” 

“I mean, if you say so.” Hax said, shrugging, “What were you so upset about anyways?” 

Rowl folded his arms over his chest. It was cold and he didn’t want Hax to get any wise ideas about trying to comfort them for something that was completely and utterly Rowl’s fault to begin with. 

“Nuh uh. You don’t get to pretend to be all cross with me.”

“I can. I am.” 

“Nope. No. No.” Hax pulled Rowl’s arm away from his chest and forced himself into Rowl’s side, grinning the entire time. There wasn’t an inch of space between the two and Rowl didn’t really want to push Hax away, so he let his arm hang limply by his side. “So. What was it?”

“No. this isn’t your problem. This isn’t yours, it’s all me. I’m just being stupid. I’m being stupid and you shouldn’t concern yourself with it.” 

“Oh come on. I probably won’t remember this in the morning. Just tell me.” 

“Well now you’re definitely going to remember this in the morning.” 

Silence hung between them until the door to The Diamond cracked open and Mongey’s heavy footsteps headed towards them. Hax perked up and dragged himself (and Rowl) towards Mongey. They missed him by an inch but Mongey rolled his eyes, waited for Hax to stumble to a stop before twisting him around to face the road they came from. 

They did most of the walk in silence. The streets had quietened down, not empty but enough they could take up the road without annoying too many people. Mongey didn’t say anything about Rowl’s crying. Hax didn’t move and his eyes kept flicking between Mongey and Rowl before he’d bite his lip and keep walking. 

As their house appeared in sight, after fifteen minutes of walking, Rowl opened his stupid mouth. “People are so mean to you two. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. Like, like, uhm. Ranked. They’re paying you shit and all you do is go ‘oh we’ll be faster to make up for it!’ even though it’s all bullshit. And you won’t accept my help although I literally have everything sorted. Like I’m meant to help you and I’m not!  And it’s all such bullshit and stupid and I’m making everything worse! We can’t even go to get drinks like normal anymore without this!” 

They didn’t stop walking. Rowl bit the inside of his lip, he wasn’t about to cry about his friends not comforting him for making their lives worse. 

“We’ll talk about it more in the morning.” Mongey said suddenly. “But I’m not having this conversation when I can’t think straight. Water, sleep, work, and then we can talk about this.” 

“We have work tomorrow?”

Rowl woke up with a headache so bad he considered grabbing an icepick from his studio and shoving it in his brain. He groaned and rolled across the bed, reaching for their watch. They fell onto the hardwood floor, which shook beneath them. Rowl scrunched his eyes in pain before stretching out and staring at the ceiling. The shock to his system was refreshing, bringing the world into blinding clarity before exploding his brain into a million pieces. 

"Owww." He groaned, covering his eyes.

The door creaked open and  Hax stepped into the room. Rowl knew it was Hax because he walked on his toes, believing it made him quieter when really it made every single floorboard creak.

"Oh! You're awake!" He was way too chipper, like an annoying bird that chirped outside their window 5 minutes before the alarm. 

"What time is it?”

“4.” 

“In the morning?” 

“No. Uhm. Mongey and I finished running like, half an hour ago but we couldn’t find you anywhere and we kinda really need to talk about last night.”

Rowl groaned, “No we don’t, I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking.” 

“Oh hell nah, drunk words are sober thoughts and we are going to address the elephant.”

“The elephant?” Rowl pushed himself up and threw a sweater on. 

“Yeah, the elephant in the room.” Hax grinned, “Anyways, Mongey made tea, so you’ve gotta come down.” Then he turned around and hopped down the stairs. 

Rowl didn’t want to move. He wanted the tea to go cold and for Mongey and Hax to sit round the coffee table until they realised Rowl didn’t need to talk about any of this. He’d kept it quiet in his head and been polite until he’d gotten too drunk to remember where he stands. Their legs nearly collapsed under them as they pushed themselves up and shifted to the main living space. 

Mongey had his hand on the boiling kettle. Rowl stared at it as Mongey’s hand began to steam. Mongey pulled his hand away from the kettle and began to pour the boiling water into three cups, a faint fruity smell began to waft from them. Hax by his side, grabbed two of the cups, balancing them between two fingers and headed to the coffee table. When Hax looked up, and spotted the Rowl, the mugs shook. 

“I didn’t think you’d get ready that fast.” Mongey said, without looking behind him. 

“Well, Hax said the tea was ready. I didn’t want it to go cold.” Rowl uttered, sitting down on the sofa. They grabbed the spoon and dedicated their focus to pressing down at the tea bag and stirring the boiling water around. “I can go back upstairs if you’d prefer.” 

“No no no no.” Hax said, the word forming before he could finish the previous, “I thought you were way more hungover but I guess you slept it off.”

Mongey stepped into the room, placed his own drink down on the table then placed his arms down in front of it. His eyes bore into Rowl, like a secret lazer beam had been modded into them. He sighed and brought his hands back to his chest, fiddling with each finger. “Back when you said you’d find a way to help us, what did you do?” 

“Nothing. I didn’t do anything, just, found that USB Hax nearly died for. It’s got valuable information on it, about the war. I’ve just been keeping hold of it. In case things get worse, we can threaten to go leak it.”

“Like blackmail.” 

“No. Not… Only a little like blackmail.”

“You,” Mongey pinched the brow of his nose, “You realise that won’t fix anything right now?”

Rowl looked towards the desk compartment he’d hidden it in. He brought their eyes back to the tea. “Yeah. But, what if we need it?” 

“Where is it?” 

Rowl focused harder on the spiral waves from his stirring. “What if things at Ranked get worse, and then you need it. Maybe it’s fine for now but I don’t want to be defenseless if they try… put you down or something.” 

Mongey’s voice remained soft, “How is blackmailing them going to help if they try to put me down?” 

“I’ll, they’ll. They’ll have too. I’ll make them.” 

“Rowl. You know blackmailing them would just incentivise them to take us all down? You think they don’t know about us. We’re all replaceable to them-” 

“Now you’re not.” 

Mongey flicked a metal plate. 

“No. You’re irreplaceable. I’d leave if we had too. I’d blackmail them for all it’s worth and I’d take you and run.” 

“What if we didn’t want to leave?” 

Rowl fell silent. 

Mongey stood up. “I’ll do a lot of things before I leave. I’ll fight Ranked if that’s what it takes, but blackmailing them won’t make any of that easier.”

"Shouldn't Hax have a say in this?” Rowl turned to Hax. He had to say something against Mongey. He had to see the sense in at least keeping the blackmail. 

Hax shifted. “I’m with Mongey. I, I appreciate what you want to do but I don’t think it’s smart. Like, it gives them ammo against us to portray us as thieves and, well, we aren’t really in a position to fight back. I’d rather not worry about that alongside the wage cuts.” His eyes flicked to the curtain. Rowl swallowed. 

Rowl sat in silence. He took a sip of his tea, burning his tongue and focused on the tingling sensation rather than the weight that was hanging on him. “It’s in the second drawer, with the blueprints.”

Mongey grinned and went to the drawers, he dug out the pages, placing them on top the desk until at the very bottom, he found the chip. He closed his palm around it, put the blueprints back in the cupboards and relaxed. 

“Thanks.” Mongey said. 

“It’s no problem, really. I’m sorry I kept it.” 

“It’s all good. I’ll say I found it en route, try and bargain a few extra gold for it.” 

Rowl wanted to scream, a few extra gold wasn’t enough. He picked up the cup of tea and took a long sip. “Okay. Uhm, let me know if there’s anything I can help with.”

Mongey nodded, “I will, but for now, this is enough.” 

The living room smelt like April showers when Hax walked in. The window was tilted 75 degrees, held up by a broken broomstick. The stove sat ten steps away from the pile of exposed wires and outdated, heavy computers, which moisture would destroy. Rowl stood by the stove, watching the pot and periodically chasing the steam out the window with a hand towel. 

Hax peeked around Rowl's shoulder and scrunched his nose, “No way we’re that poor.” 

“Can you help instead of just standing around?” Rowl threw a carrot at Hax’s face. He fumbled to catch it, knocking over an onion which rolled onto the floor. Hax stared at it, before placing the carrot on the counter and picking the onion up. 

“What’d you need me to do?” 

“Chop them up, very small. If I’d have to chew it, you haven’t cut it small enough.” 

“Aye aye.”

Rowl huffed. They turned back to the pot, started to scoop out everything in it, the bones and old vegetables, and threw it out the window. They stirred the water left and frowned. “I didn’t leave them in for long enough." They sighed, miesrable "You won’t mind if it tastes like beetroot would you? I threw out the stock to early.”

“Huh?” Hax asked. He reached towards the knife and made the first slice of the carrot, the dull blade thunking against the counter as he pushed down on it. “You mean we aren’t eating bones and carrots tonight?” 

“Bro. That’s not funny.” Rowl said, while snorting slightly, “You know we’re not eating chicken bones. Have I ever fed you chicken bones before?” 

“There’s always gotta be a first time for everything man. Maybe today is the day our savings finally ran out and we’re having bones for dinner, licking them dry. I don’t know.” 

“I don’t know why I bothered talking to you. Go back to carrots.” Rowl said. He picked up a few beetroots from the other side of the counter and slid them into the pot, stirring in slow circles. He adjusted the dial on the top of the stove which supposedly made the circular pads cooler. Hax had never understood why they added advancements that would just slow life down, but he wasn’t a chef. Everything in Ranked moved so fast that it was slightly unnerving, the thought of slowing down. The carrots split with a crack as he cut another slice off. Again and again, as the pieces got smaller, although not small enough, until Hax was holding the carrots between the pads of his fingers. 

The core of the carrot jammed the dull knife, which angled to the right and sliced down against Hax’s right hand. He flinched back. The two chunks of carrot fell on the floor and Hax rushed to pick them up. They were stained red with his blood and Hax’s hand stung with the faint pressure pressing down on it. He gasped and chucked them onto the counter before stumbling back. 

Rowl turned away from the pot and hissed. “How bad is it?” 

Hax opened the palm of his hand and stared down at it. He twisted it around, examining the gash from multiple angles, watching the stray drops of blood slide around his hand. “Not that bad.” He settled on. “I probably just need to clean it.” 

Rowl hummed. 

“I mean, it could definitely be better, and maybe I shouldn’t be around any knives but-” 

“I trust your judgement Hax.” Rowl said. They stepped away from the pot and nudged Hax out of the way until they were standing by the carrots. He took the knife, wiped the handle against his white jumper, which left a pink smudgy stain, and started to cut the carrots into halves again. 

Hax stood there for a second, savouring the words and feeling them settle in his gut. He stepped towards the tap in the corner of the room, set the water to cold, between low and high pressure and let his hand sit under it. 

As he waited for the wound to turn a light pink, and for the bleeding to stop temporarily, the smell shifted to something sweeter. Hax gave an exaggerated sniff. “Smells good.” He drew his hand away from the tap and stuffed a bunch of crumpled paper towels over it. Blood didn’t seep through and he relaxed, grabbed another handful for good measure and pressed down hard. “Where do we keep the medical tape?”

“Second cupboard, to the left. You know the one I mean?”

Hax was already moving towards it. Since Rowl was still so focused on cooking, he called out a quick, “Yeah!” before pulling the drawer out. Hax bit the medical tape to separate the line from the rest of the roll. It tasted like glue, and probably wasn’t the most hygienic, but who cares, it wasn’t like that specific edge would go on the cut, so he wouldn’t get an infection, probably. 

With the cut cleaned and covered with efficient pressure, Hax wandered back to the kitchen area and shuffled besides Rowl. When they refused to move, Hax nudged them with his elbow. Rowl turned to stare at Hax, fingers still deftly moving across the knife, and cutting the carrot into tiny pieces. 

“What are you doing here?” Rowl asked. 

“I came back to help. My hands fine now, see!” Hax said raising his paper covered hand and waving it in front of Rowl’s face. 

“I am not letting you continue using a knife while your hand looks like that, dude.”

“But there’s other ways I can help right?”

“By sitting down and leaving me alone so I can continue doing this without any more incidents.” 

“That’s boring though!” Hax exclaimed, drawing out the syllables in ‘boring.’ 

Rowl shot Hax a death glare - not that Rowl would ever wish actual death upon Hax. “Does it seem like I care if you’re bored? I will be done in fifteen minutes. You can entertain yourself, do whatever you do when I’m not around.”

“But you’re always around.”

“I… we both literally work. Do whatever you do while you work.” 

“I literally just showered dude, and you want me to go for  a run, willingly? The thing that nearly got me killed?” 

“You are misunderstanding me on purpose! What do you think about while running? Surely so much of it is just  dead time? You can’t be navigating or dodging bombs and bullets the entire time.” 

“There’s pretty views when I’m running! There’s like, the whole city to take in! Here there’s just,” Hax gestured towards the window, which opened to an alleyway. “That! Metal sheets and maybe some save scumming out if we’re lucky.” 

“You could always count the bolts on those metal sheets.” Rowl said. They didn’t look up from where they had begun to cut the onion into small squares. 

Hax groaned and wandered over the sofa. He rested his head against the wall, counting the stains on the ceiling. When he squinted his eyes, they merged into shapes, the deeper stains seeming like shadows. He traced around them lazily while Rowl scraped food into the pot. The knife scratched against the chopping board, the hissed scraps quieting some part of his brain. The plastic board clicked back onto the table and the repetitive thunk of chopped vegetables rang through the house. Hax closed his eyes, suddenly bored of the stains, and listened to Rowl maneuver around the kitchen. 

The April showers smell strengthened, growing almost sweet enough for Hax to feel its weight on his tongue. He shifted about on the couch until his face rested on the arm rest and he’d curled into a small ball on one of the cushions. Hax yawned. Faintly, under the sounds of his cooking, Rowl laughed. Hax huddled deeper into the cushions, too cozy to move and ask. 

Hax woke up half an hour later, hand resting on his neck and an itchy blanket pulled over his body. He blearily blinked and groaned a combination of sounds that didn’t quite make a full word. Someone giggled beside him. Hax squinted his eyes to see a pink lump sitting beside him, with a bowl on its lap. He shifted to try and get a closer look and heard a distinct giggle. The blanket slipped off his shoulders and Mongey reached forward to tuck it around his shoulders. 

“You could have chosen a softer blanket. This one's itchy.” Hax groaned, staying still. 

“You’re awake.” 

“Don’t sound so surprised.” 

Mongey giggled again and pushed a bowl towards Hax. He sat up and grabbed it, savouring the warmth for a total of three seconds before taking a bite. Then promptly taking another. Hax shifted in his seat, keeping the blanket around his shoulders, so he could see Rowl as he said, “Yo, this is so good. Like, 10/10, you’ll have to make it again, soon.” 

Rowl flushed. “I make it every week. You say that every week. I know it tastes good.” They scraped their bowl and placed it back on the counter with a clink. He turned back to the kitchen and switched the taps on. 

“Woah, woah!” Hax called, pushing himself up from the sofa, “You cooked, I can clean up. You should sit down.” 

“I’m not letting you anywhere near water while your bandage is paper.” 

Hax rolled his eyes but fell back into his seat and took another bite of the borscht. “What about Mongey?” 

Mongey flipped his head around, but before he could stand up, or protest, Rowl said, “No. Mongey will volunteer to clean if he wants. It’s okay. I like doing all this.” 

Mongey’s gaze lingered on Rowl for a second before he leaned back against the sofa. The water began to hum through the room and when that turned off, wet scrubbing. Mongey quietly took another sip of his soup and reached in his bag, bringing  out a stack of square coloured paper. He took the first piece from the top, which was yellow, and began to fold it. 

Hax leaned against Mongey’s shoulder, watching him fold the paper into a tiny yellow flower. “Wow.” He murmured. 

Mongey placed it on the table besides the small handful of others he’d made and grabbed two pieces of paper. He handed one to Hax, “Do you want to try making one?”

Hax shook his head, moving his metal arm out of sight. Each finger worked perfectly but the paper would slide across with no nails to hold it in place, or crumble at first contact with a dent. 

Mongey frowned, but placed the paper back on the table. “Okay,” He said, “But the offer’s always  open if you want to learn.” He dragged his free hand through Hax’s curls as he drew it back, scratching his scalp. Hax sighed and leaned further onto Mongey’s shoulder. If Mongey noticed he didn’t say anything, just returned to the paper origami and continued folding it, until a blue flower sat beside the yellow one. 

“Whatcha making these for?” Hax asked. 

Mongey shrugged, “It’s just a way to pass time. Someone in the queue taught me and I’ve been working on it since.” 

“Yeah, but what’s the point.” 

“I want to.” 

Hax scrunched his nose and started to narrate the steps as Mongey started his third flower. Mongey snorted on occasion when Hax got a step wrong. He placed the third flower down on the table. Instead of picking up a fourth piece of paper, he wrapped a hand around Hax’s shoulder and pulled him closer, somehow. 

“Are you going to fall back asleep?” Mongey asked teasingly. 

Hax shook his head, “No. I’m not. Although it’s tempting, yeah, like if I fall asleep then you have no choice but to stay here with me, and you’re warm.” 

“Do you really only hang out with me because I’m warm?” 

“No. No, no. you also make these really cool flowers, that you’re gonna teach me how to make.”

“I thought you didn’t want to…?”

“I changed my mind.”

Somehow, the stone temple remained standing. Hax hadn’t visited in years, because grief, then exhaustion overtook him. Shards of yellow glass lay around it, and this time there was one advertisement, for potions half-positioned on the turret, the other half hitting the old red brick trading hall. Hax pulled his hands out of his pocket and gestured towards the building. Mongey and Rowl stopped walking to his left and stared up at the building in boredom. 

“You wanted to show us a decrypt building?” Rowl asked, tugging his coat down in the freezing cold that kissed the crown of his head. 

“Maybe there’s a reason Hax took us here.” Mongey said, turning to Hax. 

“I don’t know.” Hax murmured to himself. The temple stood taller in his memory, standing besides the square metal hubs with this ragged pride. It’d been a sanctuary from the confusing world outside, probably because it’d been warm and Hax had been young. He laughed, snickering into the palm of his hand. “Sorry, sorry, there’s not really anything here. I just, I came here as a kid once and I thought it was more impressive than it is.” 

Rowl huffed, but smiled slightly under his scarf. Mongey chuckled and hopped over the debris and up the stairs.

“We came all the way here.” He said. Hax shook his head, about to protest that they could turn back, make some tea and warm up back home. Mongey had already vanished through the heavy double doors, which slammed a pile of dust onto the ground in their wake. Hax ran up the stairs, stumbling around the glass. Padded footsteps and muttered swear words followed just behind him. 

They left footprints in the grey floor as they walked down the centre aisle towards the lectern. The winter’s chill circled the room, heavy but still. Hax tugged his coat closer to his chest. He inched closer to Mongey, standing before the lectern, relaxing into the heating system that had turned up a gear for the cold weather. Rowl pressed himself against Mongey’s side. They reached forward towards the book. 

“You don’t think this is trapped, do you?” He asked. 

“I didn’t know you read.” Mongey teased, as he pushed Rowl’s hand out of the way, resting his on the front cover instead. 

“Not unless someone’s trapped it in the past…” Hax jokingly held up his two hands and counted up to nine, “Seven years, which is pretty unlikely if you ask me!” 

“Did you just… Dude. You’re so stupid.” Rowl muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Mongey, just open it.” 

The book fell flat open. Rowl and Hax coughed as the dust wafted in their face while Mongey inched closer, tracing the words with his fingers. His face scrunched up with each line. Rowl pushed into Mongey’s space, eyes following Mongey’s finger. They turned to Hax at the same time.

Hax shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s about either. I guess, maybe it’s because last time I came here it’s because I was younger but apparently it’s some dead man’s dream. The first Save… Hey, maybe this might be familiar to you Mongey.” He pushed into Mongey’s side, making the other two stumble to the side. He read the first line of the page Mongey had turned too. It didn’t make much more sense, despite Hax’s frontal lobe developing far more. He turned the book sideways, but the letters just looked wrong. The quietness of the temple doubled, the constant traffic of the main city dampening into a faint hum. 

“Did you guys notice that?” Hax asked quietly, afraid he’d shatter an illusion in his mind by speaking. 

“How could…” Mongey said, trailing off and nodding along. 

Hax flipped over a handful of pages, skipping towards the end. That’s where most interesting things in books happen, or overdrawn acknowledgements. He half way down the page, for the final few sentences. 

and the universe said you are not alone

and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing

and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code

and the universe said I love you because you are love.

And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.

Hax rubbed his eyes and pushed away from the lectern. He sat on the hard, cold step between where the lectern was heralded and the rest of the temple. Bleary dots formed in his visions; he blinked until they vanished and Hax wiped his eyes, catching all the tears except one. 

“I think I get it now.” Hax said, voice echoing across the temple. “I mean, not really. Some guy probably made it up still because it’s a book, but I think I get it.” 

Mongey sat down beside Hax, “And there I thought I was meant to get it, seeing as I’m the Save state here.” 

Hax laughed, “I mean, maybe. Did you have a disembodied voice calling you love when you died?” 

“Maybe. I don’t really remember much.” 

“When I was… you know, like, passed out, unconscious, basically dead, on the brink of it, I felt warm. That’s weird right? Like, aren’t dead people meant to be cold?” 

“I don’t know? Uhm. I don’t carry memories from my death, if we actually record them. It wouldn’t make such a smooth transition but, it’s a nice idea, that it’s warm.” 

“How were you warm with that much bloodloss? I mean, uhm.  It’s a nice idea.” Rowl said, face flushed. Hax and Mongey turned to stare at them. He’d chosen to stay by the book, flipping between two pages. “It’s nice to imagine there’s something looking out for us, out there, when we die. That. uhm, that Mongey.. That it was warm. Sorry.” 

“Oh my god.” Mongey said, “Come pick up that book and sit with us.” 

“What?” 

“Come on. I want to see what the universe has to say before that. She can’t immediately be calling me love, there’s gotta be some kind of build-up. "

Rowl picked the book from the lectern and walked towards the steps. He dropped the heavy book onto Mongey’s lap and smirked as he sat down. Mongey smiled, which only grew when Hax leaned against his shoulder. He flicked over to the first page and started to read, “I see the player you mean.”