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Crossed Wires chapter, uh, i dunno.
homg i wroted more. nowai. It's sleep deprivation, i only write that fic when i'm all loopy. And kinda annoyed, that helps too. Someone nicely warned me that i got plagiarised, but ffnet ate the url so i have no idea how bad it is. Hnn.
plz point out any mistakes you see, i'm too braindead to notice them. thank you. ♥
Sasuke wakes to an unfamiliar ceiling. Cream-colored paint, no cracks, no rust. The table under him is wood, not metal. Even the light is different. For one thing, it's not subtly flickering like it's slowly ticking down the seconds till it can implode.
His fingers won't move. He can't turn his head. His tongue moves, he can grit his teeth, his vocal box doesn't seem impaired, and he can feel his autonomic functions going -- lung, necessary for speech and to keep his insides clean; gyroscopes -- like he needs a sense of balance, flat on his back; power accumulators necessary to activate the syntheskin. If someone takes a swing at him, he can go into armor-shift. But none of his muscles will respond to any of his commands.
Screw that serial killer. Screw his law enforcement subroutines. Sasuke is going to kill Naruto with his own two hands.
He waits for the yellow warning screen, ready to close it the millisecond it pops up, but it doesn't come.
... Strange. For one second he wonders whether the program somehow recognized it as an expression of frustration without real intent... But it's never been that subtle before -- and the anger and desire of retribution behind Sasuke's words were real enough to deserve a warning anyway.
When he checks his memory banks for the government add-ons, he finds the whole folder wiped. It's a thorough job. Not a clean one, he can see some broken code and useless info-bots, automatically gathering data for a decision-making tree that isn't there anymore. He searches and he searches, but he can find no program left that will actually do anything. No program to berate him for threatening a civilian. No program to demand a report on any crime higher than petty theft.
No program to enforce the Sharingan mode and assign absolute priority to predefined targets.
He's free.
It's terrifying.
"Whatever you do, don't reboot."
The voice makes him blink. His movement sensors weren't tripped; he wasn't expecting it. The man isn't in his limited field of vision, but he recognizes the vocal imprint.
Naruto's friend, the one he gets drunk with. Shikamaru.
There are questions to ask -- what am I doing here, what did you do to me, who deleted that program. Those are not the most important. "Where is Naruto?"
Shikamaru sighs, from somewhere to the left of his feet. "Ahh, I don't have a clue. He dumped you through my window and ran off."
Sasuke grits his teeth. Figures. "He didn't say anything?"
Shikamaru's spiky ponytail wobbles into view as he hauls himself from either a low bed or the floor. From what Sasuke gathered from their only meeting, he's been known to nap in strange places. "He said to keep you there until he came back or until next week."
"It's been a week?"
He's going to kill him. Kill him dead. Fucking moron went and got his fool self killed. Sasuke's going to hunt down his corpse and--
-- and --
... and... Oh.
Shit. Shit. Not again. Not again.
"It's only been two days," Shikamaru drawls.
Sasuke stares at Shikamaru, who stands with his hands in his pockets and a thoroughly chewed pen dangling from his mouth.
"... Why...?"
"Because he's an overreacting idiot when it's about keeping his friends safe. Because I figure whatever it is he's doing, he needs backup more than you need your hand held. Because, frankly, I don't know you, and I want him alive and safe a lot more than I'm afraid to see you dead."
Sasuke tears his attention away from his still unstable and conflicting emotions -- anger and fear and memory of grief. He doesn't have the time. And this, right now, wasn't what he expected of the man. Naruto told him Shikamaru was just a normal guy who didn't know anything. He's even supposed to have a nice little legit job and everything.
"You know what I am."
"Sure."
"Since when?"
Shikamaru switches the pen from the left of his mouth to his right. "Since you perched your anorexic ass on that stool, and left the same kind of gouges in the floor Chouji does. I knew Naruto was fixing you an arm, but even four steel limbs wouldn't be that heavy."
Sasuke stares at him in blank disbelief.
"Granted," the man adds, as an afterthought, "I didn't know what kind of bot you were at that point."
That's pretty clear subtext. "And now you do." He wants to hear it. For confirmation.
Shikamaru shrugs and leans against the wall, hands still deep in his pockets. "Now I do."
Sasuke's upper lip curls in impotent rage. "You hacked me."
Shikamaru gives him a heavy-lidded, cryptic look, and doesn't bother denying it. "It was an interesting challenge."
A challenge. A fucking challenge. "That's --" Treason, he wants to say, but he's not sure how it is; he's his own legal person now, not property of the government anymore. It's still something he could sue him over, he's pretty sure; there have been precedents to treat AI hacking as assault and violation of privacy, but without the subroutines prodding him, he can't quite push himself to place Shikamaru in the Enemies of the State category. "...Illegal. I didn't give you permission."
"There was no time to ask for it." Shikamaru spits out the pen, drops it in a wastebasket, and stares down at him, deadly serious. "I'm not sorry."
Sasuke bristles, literally, the current running through his body making paths where his syntheskin goes from golden skin to sharp-edged plates of steel. Patches of metallic blue-gray spread up his side, creep over his cheek and the bridge of his nose.
Shikamaru only arches an eyebrow.
"What do you want to do the most right now, to punish me for that?"
Sasuke is tempted to say yes. But it's not true, and Shikamaru's eyes are full of intent. He expects something. Sasuke might just be able to give it.
"... You'll still be there when I come back with that retard. Won't you?"
The man smirks, just a tiny one; it's the first Sasuke's seen on his face today, and it's nothing like the lazy amusement he showed that night at the bar. It's darker, and really not that amused at all.
"I will be," Shikamaru promises, and then something beeps and unlocks, and Sasuke can move again.
"Know where to find him?"
Sasuke nods briskly as he sits up, taking in the rest of what he realizes is Shikamaru's bedroom. He rushes through his check-up routine. Everything seems to work. He slides off the desk.
"Remember what I told you. Don't reboot. It's not gone."
Sasuke pauses midway to the window.
"There's a node deeper in, but I haven't figured out how to get to it yet. As long as it's here, the programming will redownload the second you hit the 'net. That's why I blocked your wifi access."
... Shit. No counting on police feeds to track the killer then. He's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed to know that the government subroutines might still come back. They're a hindrance in everyday life, but he's had them for so long, he's not entirely sure how to trust his personal sense of justice. Interpretation is always flawed in some way, after all.
Shikamaru opens a drawer and hands out a wire to him. "Here. Don't lose it."
Sasuke frowns at the illegal plug at the end of the USB cable, but wraps it around his wrist like a crude bracelet anyway. He doesn't bother nodding his thanks, saying goodbye, saying anything at all. He steps over Shikamaru's bed, making the springs cry out, and then he's out the window. A fire escape takes him down to ground level, and then he's running.
First things first, there are some toys he left home that he needs to get before he does anything else.
plz point out any mistakes you see, i'm too braindead to notice them. thank you. ♥
Sasuke wakes to an unfamiliar ceiling. Cream-colored paint, no cracks, no rust. The table under him is wood, not metal. Even the light is different. For one thing, it's not subtly flickering like it's slowly ticking down the seconds till it can implode.
His fingers won't move. He can't turn his head. His tongue moves, he can grit his teeth, his vocal box doesn't seem impaired, and he can feel his autonomic functions going -- lung, necessary for speech and to keep his insides clean; gyroscopes -- like he needs a sense of balance, flat on his back; power accumulators necessary to activate the syntheskin. If someone takes a swing at him, he can go into armor-shift. But none of his muscles will respond to any of his commands.
Screw that serial killer. Screw his law enforcement subroutines. Sasuke is going to kill Naruto with his own two hands.
He waits for the yellow warning screen, ready to close it the millisecond it pops up, but it doesn't come.
... Strange. For one second he wonders whether the program somehow recognized it as an expression of frustration without real intent... But it's never been that subtle before -- and the anger and desire of retribution behind Sasuke's words were real enough to deserve a warning anyway.
When he checks his memory banks for the government add-ons, he finds the whole folder wiped. It's a thorough job. Not a clean one, he can see some broken code and useless info-bots, automatically gathering data for a decision-making tree that isn't there anymore. He searches and he searches, but he can find no program left that will actually do anything. No program to berate him for threatening a civilian. No program to demand a report on any crime higher than petty theft.
No program to enforce the Sharingan mode and assign absolute priority to predefined targets.
He's free.
It's terrifying.
"Whatever you do, don't reboot."
The voice makes him blink. His movement sensors weren't tripped; he wasn't expecting it. The man isn't in his limited field of vision, but he recognizes the vocal imprint.
Naruto's friend, the one he gets drunk with. Shikamaru.
There are questions to ask -- what am I doing here, what did you do to me, who deleted that program. Those are not the most important. "Where is Naruto?"
Shikamaru sighs, from somewhere to the left of his feet. "Ahh, I don't have a clue. He dumped you through my window and ran off."
Sasuke grits his teeth. Figures. "He didn't say anything?"
Shikamaru's spiky ponytail wobbles into view as he hauls himself from either a low bed or the floor. From what Sasuke gathered from their only meeting, he's been known to nap in strange places. "He said to keep you there until he came back or until next week."
"It's been a week?"
He's going to kill him. Kill him dead. Fucking moron went and got his fool self killed. Sasuke's going to hunt down his corpse and--
-- and --
... and... Oh.
Shit. Shit. Not again. Not again.
"It's only been two days," Shikamaru drawls.
Sasuke stares at Shikamaru, who stands with his hands in his pockets and a thoroughly chewed pen dangling from his mouth.
"... Why...?"
"Because he's an overreacting idiot when it's about keeping his friends safe. Because I figure whatever it is he's doing, he needs backup more than you need your hand held. Because, frankly, I don't know you, and I want him alive and safe a lot more than I'm afraid to see you dead."
Sasuke tears his attention away from his still unstable and conflicting emotions -- anger and fear and memory of grief. He doesn't have the time. And this, right now, wasn't what he expected of the man. Naruto told him Shikamaru was just a normal guy who didn't know anything. He's even supposed to have a nice little legit job and everything.
"You know what I am."
"Sure."
"Since when?"
Shikamaru switches the pen from the left of his mouth to his right. "Since you perched your anorexic ass on that stool, and left the same kind of gouges in the floor Chouji does. I knew Naruto was fixing you an arm, but even four steel limbs wouldn't be that heavy."
Sasuke stares at him in blank disbelief.
"Granted," the man adds, as an afterthought, "I didn't know what kind of bot you were at that point."
That's pretty clear subtext. "And now you do." He wants to hear it. For confirmation.
Shikamaru shrugs and leans against the wall, hands still deep in his pockets. "Now I do."
Sasuke's upper lip curls in impotent rage. "You hacked me."
Shikamaru gives him a heavy-lidded, cryptic look, and doesn't bother denying it. "It was an interesting challenge."
A challenge. A fucking challenge. "That's --" Treason, he wants to say, but he's not sure how it is; he's his own legal person now, not property of the government anymore. It's still something he could sue him over, he's pretty sure; there have been precedents to treat AI hacking as assault and violation of privacy, but without the subroutines prodding him, he can't quite push himself to place Shikamaru in the Enemies of the State category. "...Illegal. I didn't give you permission."
"There was no time to ask for it." Shikamaru spits out the pen, drops it in a wastebasket, and stares down at him, deadly serious. "I'm not sorry."
Sasuke bristles, literally, the current running through his body making paths where his syntheskin goes from golden skin to sharp-edged plates of steel. Patches of metallic blue-gray spread up his side, creep over his cheek and the bridge of his nose.
Shikamaru only arches an eyebrow.
"What do you want to do the most right now, to punish me for that?"
Sasuke is tempted to say yes. But it's not true, and Shikamaru's eyes are full of intent. He expects something. Sasuke might just be able to give it.
"... You'll still be there when I come back with that retard. Won't you?"
The man smirks, just a tiny one; it's the first Sasuke's seen on his face today, and it's nothing like the lazy amusement he showed that night at the bar. It's darker, and really not that amused at all.
"I will be," Shikamaru promises, and then something beeps and unlocks, and Sasuke can move again.
"Know where to find him?"
Sasuke nods briskly as he sits up, taking in the rest of what he realizes is Shikamaru's bedroom. He rushes through his check-up routine. Everything seems to work. He slides off the desk.
"Remember what I told you. Don't reboot. It's not gone."
Sasuke pauses midway to the window.
"There's a node deeper in, but I haven't figured out how to get to it yet. As long as it's here, the programming will redownload the second you hit the 'net. That's why I blocked your wifi access."
... Shit. No counting on police feeds to track the killer then. He's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed to know that the government subroutines might still come back. They're a hindrance in everyday life, but he's had them for so long, he's not entirely sure how to trust his personal sense of justice. Interpretation is always flawed in some way, after all.
Shikamaru opens a drawer and hands out a wire to him. "Here. Don't lose it."
Sasuke frowns at the illegal plug at the end of the USB cable, but wraps it around his wrist like a crude bracelet anyway. He doesn't bother nodding his thanks, saying goodbye, saying anything at all. He steps over Shikamaru's bed, making the springs cry out, and then he's out the window. A fire escape takes him down to ground level, and then he's running.
First things first, there are some toys he left home that he needs to get before he does anything else.
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