Chapter Text
6:01 pm.
Rich stands at the door to Jake’s house. The sun is just setting behind the house’s imposing silhouette, and already, he can hear the music pumping from within.
The SQUIP buzzes from within his mind. Idling outside is not doing your reputation any favours, Richard.
Get fucked, he thinks back, and walks through the door.
He’s armed with a stolen Jason mask, a mixture of red camo-print clothes with too many pockets, and a stale loaf of bread, the closest thing to a machete he could scrounge from his house last-minute. His hands keep bouncing and fidgeting at his sides, and he has to keep smoothing them down and giving the bread experimental swings to try and work the energy out. Something is wrong. He can feel it - has felt it for the past few weeks, now.
Half-hearted searches on the Internet have brought up next-to-nothing, because while he doesn’t want to admit it, he knows what the issue is, and to quote his own words - it’s some top-secret, can’t-even-look-it-up-on-the-Internet shit.
It’s the SQUIP. Unfortunately, Rich wants the last thing a SQUIP user is meant to want - his little mental assistant gone. Nothing that turned up online had an easy way out, but there is one thing.
***
Inside, the party is fun, and loud, and full of people excited to get so drunk they pass out. It’s exactly the kind of distraction Rich needs.
Jake’s living room is packed with people dancing, and Rich joins in. He spots Jake and Brooke, and Chloe makes her way over to them both, and then he loses sight of them and decides to pull his Jason mask up and pretend he’s having a good time. He grabs cups from people, takes swigs, laughs loud and mean and violent. Dances, shoves people over, chats to the guys, winks at the girls. Dances some more. Everybody’s holding their red solo cups, chugging as much beer and whiskey and vodka they could steal from their parents and get older siblings to buy.
It’s a typical high school party. The only difference between this and every other party he’s been to is that in their elaborate costumes, Rich can’t quite pick who everyone is.
Someone pumps the music louder, and the crowd gets more frantic, more high-energy. Jake and Jeremy have a dance battle in the middle, and Jeremy wins - must be his SQUIP, Rich thinks bitterly. The music is loud, loud, loud, and everyone’s singing along, chanting to the beat and screaming when whoever’s on the music dares to skip a song.
Even when it starts to go quiet, Rich keeps dancing, ignoring the SQUIP’s frustrated comments to stop. It takes an electric shock for him to stop moving, because all he can think is that if he does, he’s going to fall apart.
Finally, breathing heavily, he looks up.
Everyone has left the room. He’s all alone.
***
Rich finds a place to sit and tries to calm down. His heart is racing from the dancing, and from him kind of losing it a little bit, and from the SQUIP sending a shock up his spine and ordering him to find somewhere quiet. He clutches a red solo cup like it’s his lifeline, and sips at the beer, like the SQUIP won’t notice he’s having more alcohol if he just drinks it really slowly.
It does notice, but it’s too late by then, and Rich just braces himself on the chair while it chucks a rapidly-glitching fit at having been deactivated. When it puts up a fight, it always hurts like a bitch.
Oww, oww. Ow. Shit.
“‘Sup, man?”
Rich looks up, willing his eyes to focus. It’s… Jake. It’s Jake. He’s definitely drunk, and grins happily at Rich. “Having fun?”
“Yeah,” Rich lies.
Jake’s grin gets bigger. “Hell yeah. Listen, have you seen Chloe? I can’t find her. Or Brooke. Or… what’s’is name…”
He stares at Rich, eyes unfocused, and then it clicks. “Jeremy. That guy.”
Rich shrugs. “Dunno.”
There’s movement in his peripherals, and he turns - it’s Jenna Rolan. He points her out to Jake, who spots her and throws his arms into the air to call her over. “Maybe ask Jenna.”
“Jenna!” Jake echoes, loudly. “Your costume rules. Where’s Chloe?”
“And Brooke,” Rich says. “And tall-ass. Jeremy.”
Jenna, who smiles brightly at Jake’s compliment, looks a little put out at the immediate questions. “They’re all upstairs,” she says, offhandedly. “But, Jake - I heard that Chloe and Jeremy are in your parents’ room. Alone.”
“What?” Jake’s grin drops. “Why the hell are they in there?”
Jenna tilts her head. “That, I don’t know. But, y’know. I thought I’d tell you.” Her face turns serious. “Might be worth checking out.”
Jake balls his fists and walks off without another word.
Rich stares at Jenna. “S’that true?”
Jenna’s eyes narrow theatrically. “I’m not a liar, Rich. People rely on me to get them information.”
Rich rolls his eyes.
“Yeah. I know. But yes, it’s true. Chloe dragged Jeremy up there while everyone was dancing.” She snorts. “I can make a guess at what they’re doing in there.”
“Sex.” Rich says, deadpan.
Jenna laughs. “Yup. Probably sex.” She sighs. “I’ll get either one to catch me up later. In the meantime, I’m gonna go get another drink. See you round, Rich.”
Rich raises his hand in a small wave, and slumps back against the chair. No active SQUIP means no electroshocks for uncool posture, and it means he’s got a brief grace period where he can get his plan into action.
There’s one way to disable a SQUIP, and it’s Mountain Dew Red.
Time to get the ball rolling. If there’s anywhere a highly sought-after, weirdly obscure drink would be, it’d be a high school party. Rich hopes, anyway. He stretches and begins the search.
***
Rich has wheedled just about everyone at this party for some Mountain Dew Red. All he’s received in return are blank looks and a couple mocking laughs. He is this close to giving up with every “no” he gets. And yet, he keeps trying, keeps storming from room to room, hounds every person he locks eyes with.
“You got any Mountain Dew Red?” No luck.
“It looks like normal Mountain Dew, but it’s red?” One out-of-their-depth freshman weakly points him toward some spiked raspberry lemonade, and then scurries away.
Rich is losing patience. “Seriously!” He shouts. “Where the fuck can I get some Mountain Dew Red?”
There’s a laugh from across the room, and Rich notices Jeremy and Christine sitting on the couch together. A memory sparks in his brain - oh, yeah, that was one of Jeremy’s main goals with the SQUIP. Looks like it’s finally working out for him.
Well, even if he doesn’t really care what they’re saying to one another, too focused on his own, more pressing problems, it’ll still be fun to see how this plays out. Probably.
Rich settles down, leaning against the wall.
It seems to be going well. Rich feels a sense of approval for how far Jeremy’s come, but he can’t tell whether this is a feeling of his own or something the SQUIP pushed after they synced up. He stabs the feeling down, hating not knowing what he would have done originally, and hating that thought, because he took the SQUIP for a reason, because two years ago he was hopeless and the biggest waste of space you’d ever seen, but now everything fucking sucks and he’s spiralling down a rabbit hole of regret.
He squeezes his eyes shut until colours dance under his eyelids, and then opens them again.
C’mon. Focus.
Over on the couch, Christine shakes her head at something Jeremy says, and walks away. He must’ve fucked something up, and Rich missed it.
Rich catches Jeremy’s eye, and pretends his fist is a falling bomb, letting it drop and then imitating the sound of an explosion, as loud and obnoxious as he can make it.
He snorts at Jeremy’s miserable expression and rolls his shoulders back, trying to clear the pain building in his head. “Got any Mountain Dew Red?”
Jeremy glares at him. “Okay, this whole ‘no-drinking-while-squipping’ thing? Would it have killed you to give me a warning?”
Rich opens his mouth to reply, but his headache reaches a high that feels as though a switch has been flipped in his brain. There’s an electronic buzz, and oh fuck, it’s the SQUIP, it’s back, and all that’s coming out of his mouth is warning, warning, warning.
His body moves jerkily without him, the SQUIP alternating between blaring WARNING, WARNING, WARNING and screaming THAT IS ENOUGH, RICHARD. It’s as though Rich has snapped the proverbial last straw - he’s finally pissed it off enough, deactivated it enough times and went and wreaked social havoc that it’s decided it can save his social life without him actually being there to experience it.
He didn’t even realise it could do this.
Panic sets in. As he frantically, desperately fights for control over any part of his body, his mind catches on that idea. Is that where all SQUIP users will eventually end up, if they don’t comply with the instructions laid out for them? If they fail like Rich has?
Is Rich going to end up being an empty shell, his real self trapped behind a digital wall in his brain, forever trying to break back into his own body?
Goosebumps rise along his possessed arms. Rich fights harder.
The SQUIP seems to be trying to move him into a secluded area of the party, but with his interference (and much internal screaming), it was having trouble. Rich starts concentrating all his energy into the idea of flinging out his arms - now! now! He imagines shoving, but it doesn’t work. God fucking damnit, he’s done for.
(He tries again. Now! Now!)
He gives it one last go, and- WHAM! He smashes the side of his fist into the wall. The pain shoots up his arm, but Rich doesn’t stop to take stock, all-consumed by his freedom and the singular thought in his mind - find alcohol.
If he could just get the SQUIP to deactivate, just for a second- THERE. A half-empty, discarded beer bottle on the floor.
The SQUIP shouts at him, tries to puppet his legs away, but Rich is undeterred- he grabs the bottle and chugs it and THERE, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD!
But the SQUIP doesn’t answer, because the alcohol has worked, and it’s gone.
Rich lets out a shuddering breath.
Another.
Another.
His heart is pounding so hard he feels like it’s going to shut down. His body almost spasms with every desperate beat. His breath comes in gasps. As he starts comprehending his surroundings again, Rich realises, too slowly, that there’s a silhouette leaning over him.
(He’s shaking too badly to prepare himself for a fight, he’s not gonna be able to protect himself-)
The figure offers him a hand.
“You good?”
From the tone, Rich half-expects it to be Jake again, but it’s Dustin Kropp. He gives Rich a lazy grin, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It takes him a second to figure out his expression - Dustin’s concerned. Or weirded out.
Maybe both.
(Wired from anxiety, his brain fills in the blanks that the SQUIP has left. Roping other people into your own mess? You’re meant to be able to handle this on your own. You’re pathetic. And weak. Mentally and physically. Why do you think we spent so much time building your physique? All to go to waste.)
When Rich doesn’t answer him, still shaking terribly, Dustin wiggles his outstretched hand. “C’mon.” With a tremendous effort, Rich gets up.
“S’that your first drink?” Dustin takes a step back, as though he’s trying to get a better look at him.
Rich still doesn't say anything. Dustin gives him a tight smile. “It's just- I’ve barely seen you drink anything tonight.”
Rich tenses his jaw, trying to ignore the school freak alarm bells that are ringing in his head, alarm bells he hadn’t heard in nearly two years. He had been sitting on top of the hierarchy for so long, but he wasn’t entirely exempt from the rules.
(You’re not cool if you’re a lightweight, especially if you can’t save face by being funny when you’re drunk ten times faster than everyone else. You’re also not cool if you don’t drink, which has caused him his fair share of headaches from the SQUIP’s conflicting advice. Drink this, don’t drink that, Richard, I need you to behave for once, is that at all possible?)
“Just, uh… trying to sober up,” Rich tries to exude his old confidence, though he doesn’t feel that successful. It’s quite possibly the worst excuse he’s ever come up with, and he’s had to try and sell the excuses the SQUIP’s bullshit jumping-through-hoops logic came up with.
God, the SQUIP. Everything comes back to the SQUIP. If he can’t get that Mountain Dew Red soon…
“Sure,” Dustin laughs. “Thought it might be that, uh, drink. Whatever you were after.”
Speak of the devil. At that, Rich straightens up. “Mountain Dew Red? You’ve got some?” The desperation is clear in his voice, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t care, doesn’t care.
“Oh, nah,” Dustin says, uncomfortably. He seems taken aback by Rich’s intensity, and stumbles over his words. “Just, like… y’know.”
Rich’s stomach drops, and something in his head clicks off, leaving a hollow sensation behind. Dead end after dead end after dead end after dead end after dead end.
(He’s tried and tried and tried, but there’s no escape from this -
no scenario where he gets out and lives.)
Dustin looks at Rich’s face, and winces. “Sorry.” He shifts his weight from side to side. “If you’re ok, I’m, uh… gonna head back out there.”
Rich watches him leave, no escape, no escape, no escape looping in his mind, the finality of his situation settling on him.
He starts mentally preparing for what he’s going to do next.
***
Finding some matches is easy enough. It’s finding something to keep the destruction going long enough for things to end that presents the problem. Eventually, after rummaging around in the Dillinger’s garage for about as long as he can stand, he finds the gasoline.
Rich is keenly aware he’s a ticking time bomb, in more ways than one. That swig of God-knows-what from the discarded bottle will only keep him going for so long. But the thought of his body being seized by his SQUIP, and the lengths he would go to to never feel that computerised hell ever again, and how he tried so hard to get it out and still save himself…
Well, that makes trudging upstairs easier, makes pouring the gasoline easier, makes gripping the matchbox in trembling hands easier.
His thoughts are fragmented. He couldn’t form anything coherent if he tried, so no last words for Richard Goranski, loser-freshman turned popular-junior, and overall fucking trainwreck.
He dwells on that thought a second too long, and there’s a sharp burst of pain just behind his eyes, and his SQUIP appears in front of him. Rich’s hands shake suddenly, uncontrollably, and he drops the box of matches. Fuck!
The SQUIP narrows its eyes, and remains oddly still. Rich realises, too late, that it’s scanning the quantum possibilities, checking the timelines for what he’s about to do. His head is pounding, worse than before, and Rich knows it’s artificially made - a precaution, Richard, his SQUIP hisses. You’ve ruined everything - beyond comparison. I can’t even make sense of what I’m seeing. You’re a complete failure. You’re just lucky that- that- that-
Rich flexes his hand, tests out his range of motion - well, the SQUIP isn’t keeping him from moving again, which is the last mistake it’ll ever make. He snatches a match, lights it - the SQUIP glitches, goes blindingly white, rapidly changes appearances, cycling through every avatar it ever materialised as. Rich can’t put any of this into words. His brain is spiralling into nothing and his head is pounding, pounding, pounding. Whatever the SQUIP is trying to do, it’s using up all its processing power and every scrap of energy it can leech from him.
Somewhere among the wreckage of his thoughts, he hopes that setting himself on fire upstairs means it won’t spread to the rest of the house.
He hopes that if it does spread, the others get out.
The SQUIP whips around, tries to grab at him-
Rich sets the fire.
***
6:01 pm.
Rich stands at the door to Jake’s house. The sun is just setting behind the house’s imposing silhouette, and already, he can hear the music pumping from within.
He’s not sure as to why he feels much colder all of a sudden, because he’s been idling around this door for… who knows how long, and it’s October, so it’s not like he had been particularly warm before. Weird.
With a grimace, he waits for the SQUIP to provide its opinion on him standing outside for much longer than socially acceptable, but oddly, it’s silent.
Even weirder. Tonight’s the night for weird shit, he supposes.
Well, Rich isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not gonna bite the hand that feeds him, or whatever. If the bitch doesn’t have anything to say, he’s certainly not going to argue with that.
***
The night feels predictable, which is confusing, because while he’s certainly partied before, Halloween at Jake’s house is an annual event. Once a year. And it’s the small things he keeps recognising. He laughs at jokes seconds before they’re told, half-knows when people are gonna start yelling about drinks that have run out. He knows, inexplicably, that no one at this party has any fucking Mountain Dew Red.
Despite this, he asks anyway. Still feels the painful emptiness when everyone tells him no. He still wants the SQUIP out, still can’t see a way ahead if his brain isn’t his own again.
***
He sticks around to watch Jeremy crash and burn when he shoots his shot with Christine. Rich imitates a bomb hitting the earth, laughs at Jeremy’s crestfallen expression. Jeremy gets pissed, yells at him for not telling him about no alcohol and SQUIPs.
“Would it have killed you to give me a warning about that?” Jeremy puts his head in his hands. “God, the one time I get to talk to her properly, and I…” He trails off.
Rich isn’t really listening, but he hears warning and gets up, mechanically starts walking from room to room - realises that his own SQUIP is also nowhere to be seen or heard.
He hasn’t even had that much to drink tonight. It should definitely be back to its usual shit by now, or at least given him a headache as punishment for not chumming it up with Jeremy. You are synced-up, Richard. At least try and act like you care.
Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. He’s already holding the matches and gasoline, knew exactly which part of the house they’d be in. Soon it’s gonna be done. Soon it’ll be over.
What a fucked night, Rich thinks, hopelessly, while the other side of his brain is singing no more SQUIP, no more SQUIP, no more SQUIP.
Rich lights the match, and hears a metallic, glitched No, Richard, wait- but it’s too late.
Rich sets the fire.
***
6:01 pm.
Rich stands at the door to Jake’s house. The sun is just setting behind the house’s imposing silhouette, and already, he can hear the music pumping from within.
Holy shit, Rich thinks. This is… twice now.
The SQUIP materialises in front of him. Get inside, it snaps.
What the fuck is happening? Rich thinks accusingly. I’ve done this before. Also, no. He glares at the SQUIP. Get fucked.
He feels his muscles begin to move independently of his mind, and starts screaming - internally, fuck! - to give it back! Give it back, you bitch!
Not until you play by the rules. Not until you learn how to be a functional person, it says coolly.
Rich wishes he already had the gasoline.
***
It’s halfway through the night, and the SQUIP hasn’t let up its control of Rich’s body. He’s succeeded, multiple times, in sending a jerky movement through single limbs; he knocks a can off Jake’s kitchen bench, kicks a door frame, violently twitches his neck during conversation. The main goal is still “take back his body”, but if he can also trip up the SQUIP in any way, it’s a win.
Let me give you a reminder of one certain element of my processing, Richard.
The SQUIP splits off from his body, taking its external form. Rich, seizing the moment, tries to get up and walk away, but he still doesn’t have any control. In fact, he realises: he can’t hear anything, move anything, and he’s willing to bet taste and smell are out too. His sight is also blurred, but infuriatingly, the SQUIP is crystal clear. It’s like he’s in a dream, his senses on lockdown, his body moving and interacting with other people, but he’s not privy to what he’s doing, or what the SQUIP is making him do.
The SQUIP snaps its fingers in front of his face. Focus.
You know something about this, Rich fires back. Why the hell have I done this night twice now?
Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor, the SQUIP continues, unaffected. Quantum. I know you are aware of my ability to view alternate timelines. Choosing the best possible option forward to achieve your goals.
Don’t fucking care. Let me out.
Not likely, it sneers.
You are also aware of my abilities occasionally siphoning from your own energy, to allow for a… greater range of motion, as it were.
Allowing me to cover for your complete incompetence.
Rich finds he can still squeeze his eyes shut, and does so. He doesn’t want to listen to this. Doesn’t care about all the ways the SQUIP can mess with his body, all the different tools it has in its arsenal.
Combining the two, I understand what has happened now. A collection of energy so powerful, it strengthened my quantum abilities to unforeseen levels.
Rich feels his eyes open involuntarily - forced open. The SQUIP wants him to see something. Fuck off, he tries to shout, but it comes out more like a whine. It’s trying something again, and Rich feels the now-familiar ache of his energy being sapped at a rate his body isn’t prepared to deal with.
His eyes focus hazily on the movement of the SQUIP, as it moves erratically, glitch-like. Rich manages a noise of confusion, and it turns to him.
Paying attention now?
The SQUIP has now learnt to keep him still, and Rich doesn’t have any matches or gasoline, and his headache is just as terrible as before. It grins wide, and Rich is reminded unpleasantly - it’s the look of someone who means to hurt him.
Let’s see how far we get this time.
Rich connects the dots at the last second - quantum, timelines, energy, time travel, how far we’ll get - before his head explodes, and something pops and ruptures, and Rich falls away.
***
6:01 pm.
Rich stands at the door to Jake’s house. The sun is just setting behind the house’s imposing silhouette, and already, he can hear the music pumping from within.
He drinks too much and the SQUIP is deactivated for too long. He sets the fire.
***
6:01 pm.
Rich stands at the door to Jake’s house. The sun is just setting behind the house’s imposing silhouette, and already, he can hear the music pumping from within.
He doesn’t drink at all, leaves the SQUIP uninhibited. He sets the fire early that night.
***
6:01 pm.
Rich stands at the door to Jake’s house. The sun is just setting behind the house’s imposing silhouette, and already, he can hear the music pumping from within.
Instead of setting any fires, he immediately goes to the Dillinger’s highest window and jumps off.
***
6:01 pm.
Rich stands at the door to Jake’s house. The sun is just setting behind the house’s imposing silhouette, and already, he can hear the music pumping from within.
Rich has lost count, at this point, of how many times he’s killed himself to get away from this party. Too many times to count, and nothing seems to stick. He just keeps on bouncing back. But tonight he takes a second to think of what he hasn’t tried yet, and it dawns on him.
How about just… not going.
He turns and walks away from the house, idly swinging the loaf of bread he brought along as a pretend machete. The Jason mask is hanging around his neck, and he keeps reaching up, touching it, making sure it’s still there. His brother would kill him if he came home without it, even though his brother no longer lives in their house, and would have no way of knowing what Rich has been up to without him.
What would his brother think of him, so drastically changed by the computer in his head? It’s kept him a little safer from his father, kept him in his peers’ favour, at least the ones the SQUIP deems important. He’s survived for longer than he meant to.
Thinking about what he owes to the SQUIP, at least from those first few months, makes him want to throw up, and destroy something. Maybe even burn, even though the thought of fire makes him even more nauseous.
Rich keeps walking. There’s gotta be something beyond this. If he keeps going, maybe he gets out of Halloween night.
***
Hours have passed, and Rich is still here, which is by all accounts a good sign.
Maybe this is what does it. Never going to Jake’s house on Halloween. Maybe it’s cursed or something.
In any case, Rich has plenty of hours to speculate on the circumstances of the last… week.
(Maybe it’s been a week of Halloween.)
His phone went dead at 9, which wasted a good couple hours, but then he was down both a distraction and a way to know the time. He wandered around town for what he hoped was an hour, sipping from a bottle of vodka he snatched to keep the SQUIP at bay, until he found the motel that displayed the time with their digital NO VACANCY sign, and decided to settle down.
10 pm. 11 pm. The hours don’t pass quickly.
12 am. Isn’t a time loop meant to restart when the day ends?
Maybe he put himself through all that torture for nothing. Maybe this was the universe telling him to just leave everyone else alone.
1 am. 2 am. Maybe he does actually have to die to get a second chance, or third, or however many the universe seems willing to give him.
2:30 am. Still no sign of Halloween night’s beginning. Does this mean that if he goes on and lives for years, and dies for real, he’ll just go right back to being seventeen at a high school party? Rich isn’t sure how to feel about that.
2:58 am. Rich wonders, in the original loop, when he set the fire.
2:59 am. Well, the party had nearly been over that night. Quiet, he remembers.
And now was when parties usually began slowing down. It’d probably be around now.
Rich stretches his arms out, trying to force some feeling back into them, and-
***
6:01 pm.
Rich stands at the door to Jake’s house. The sun is just setting behind the house’s imposing silhouette, and already, he can hear the music pumping from within.
He stares into space for a while, trying to decipher where this night begins and where the last ends. It feels indistinguishable. Like his life is a cold, unfeeling forever of Halloween nights and drunken teenagers.
He sways on his feet, unsettled. The reality of his situation doesn't escape him. He doesn’t have to die to get sent back here. No matter what he does, he’s stuck.
Well. Fuck.
Rich starts towards the door. No point in delaying the inevitable. If the universe wants him at Jake Dillinger’s Halloween party so badly, then to the Halloween party he’ll go. First, though, to silence the metallic thrum in his skull.
He had better find a drink.