Chapter Text
How much work did one have to put into something without any payoff before it became some twisted form of self-harm? When did admirable persistence give way to a stupid, doomed man’s sunk cost fallacy? Because at this point, he was beginning to wonder if that stupid, doomed man was him.
Admin 3 tossed his screwdriver to the table at his side, flexing his aching hand and wiping a hand across his face in exhaustion, freezing when he felt it leave a long, slimy trail of thermal paste across his forehead.
...Yeah, okay, he was definitely in the “self-harm” territory.
He grumbled out a string of curses as he leaned over his side table to grab at a rag, rubbing it aggressively across his face, then throwing it off to the side, much like the screwdriver.
Admin 3 was a smart man. Of course, he was a smart man; he’d have to be if he were to be entrusted to take even a single step into the halls of the Gridworld to clean the damn bathrooms, not to mention being given any sort of position of authority like he had been given.
So how did nearly every step of this operation manage to find new ways to beat the confidence he ought to have right out of him?
The warm glow of the maintenance array’s backlight in front of him cast a halo around the silhouette of the deactivated AndreW model strapped to it like a pinned insect. The metal panels of its pseudo-skin were piled haphazardly on the floor around the base of the array, and in the low light the mess of blue and red wires that spilled down its front — paired with the massive fucking hole punched through its gut (though he couldn't take credit for that part) — made his “work” appear as something more akin to some brutal murder scene. And not even the impressive kind.
He understood the workings of the model so easily on paper. Still, the moment the thing was actually opened up in front of him, parts tangled up around each other rather than spread out in two dimensions and neatly labelled, he suddenly could not for the life of him recognize anything from the schematics he himself had helped draw up. His supposed brainchild felt much more like an alien at the moment.
The only consolation he had for himself at his sorry excuse for repair work was that this had always been Admin 4’s thing. Give him something genetically engineered like an A1 model and he wouldn't be even nearly this incompetent. If it weren’t for the stunt the 2002 models pulled, releasing a horde of backups upon the facility that resulted in their mass destruction, he wouldn't even need to be doing this right now. God.
The overhead lights in the room suddenly flicked on, blinding Admin 3 in a wash of LED light.
“Fuck, man. Turn that shit off,” He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as he felt the throb of the migraine taking hold in his temples return with a vengeance.
“Sorry, Dracula, my bad.” Came the voice of Admin 4 somewhere behind him.
He heard the click of the light switch again, then the steady sound of Admin 4’s shoes on the tile floors as he approached. When 3 opened his eyes again, 4 was leaning over the back of the second workshop swivel chair a few feet to his left, taking in the state of the butchered P1 model. From this angle, 3 could catch a glimpse of his eyes as they flicked up and down the thing’s frame behind his square mask. The man let out an amused snort.
“What, this one owe you money or something?”
3 groaned in defeat. “I’m trying to fix it. Not much success, as you can see. I really don't get how you enjoy this stuff.”
4 continued his silent visual inspection as 3 spoke.
“Natural talent, what can I say?” He teased, “What happened to it, anyway? I doubt even you’re a shit enough mechanic to shoot a hole like that through the thing in the name of repairs.”
“This is one of the older models, the 2002 we retrieved from world 26.”
4 suddenly did not look quite as amused, turning to him in confusion.
“The hell you need with it?”
Damn, he had not taken the time to find a way to present this idea to 4 with any level of eloquence yet.
3 took a deep breath and then gestured vaguely in front of him, “The lack of progress lately- I was thinking... It’s the models that escape in which we always see the most training progress, right?"
4 nodded along slowly, indicating 3 should continue.
“You and me both know we haven’t been able to recreate the success of those runs in any of the models we keep confined to the simulation area. I’m..."
The question was how to word it without sounding as desperate as he felt... Ah, fuck it.
“I’m so tired, man, our sector needs to show some sort of progress here to justify the resource requirements, which we are very close to exceeding our limit of after your robot killing spree back in—”
“Do not act as if that were my fault, 3.” 4 interjected coldly.
“You’re right, you’re right,” 3 quickly backpedalled, “I’m just saying. Thought I’d... kill two birds with one stone or something and experiment a bit with our most successful models.”
4 eyed him incredulously. Damn it, he’d really gotten the guy into a bad mood by mentioning their collective escape attempt fuck up. Not a good start.
“Experiment.” 4 repeated slowly.
3 couldn’t help the flicker of anger that sparked in his chest.
“I was going to check in with you first! I just wanted to get him fixed up first so you wouldn’t start fuckin' looking at me like I’m wasting your damn time.” 3 gestured at 4’s current agitated demeanour.
4 breathed out a sigh and shook his head, tension easing from him a bit. He turned the chair towards 3 with one hand, then settled down into it.
“Alright, alright. I apologize,” he relented, “But seriously. Talk.”
“Okay, hear me out.” This was gonna go so, so bad. “What if we repaired the 2002 models and monitored their behaviour outside the simulation, in one of the—”
“You are insane.” 4 stated flatly.
Aaaaand back to square one.
“You want. To release the sentient recreation of a digital plague God. Out into the Grid.” He enunciated each word very slowly, like 3 was a fucking idiot.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
God, 3 wanted to strangle him so badly.
“The hell would that even—”
3 suddenly surged up from his seat, looming defiantly over 4. “And I’m guessing you’re looking forward to going back to doing menial fucking field research under Admin 6 when we get booted from our positions after we present the board with absolutely no progress this quarter, when last quarter’s report included a containment breach and a pile of evicerated AI!” He retaliated, voice nearly bordering on a yell.
3 had already resigned himself to this ending in yet another shouting match at this point. One that he was not going to take lying down.
His certainty in this seemingly inevitable reality meant 3 was more than a little taken off guard when, instead, 4 slumped forward in his chair and let out a soul-crushingly pained groan like 3 had just punched him squarely in the gut using some form of verbal psychokinesis.
“Fuuuuck, you know I’d rather die, truly.” 4’s mask rode up over his face as he rubbed at his eyes like 3’s horrible prophecy needed to be physically dispelled from his mind. “I really hate it when you make a good point.” 4 punctuated his sentence by kicking 3 in the shin just hard enough to hurt, to which 3 promptly kicked him back.
“Thank you!” 3 threw his hands up in exasperation, letting himself fall back into his seat.
3 took the opportunity to launch into the rest of his explanation. "I'll install a backdoor on P1's psychonetwork so we can monitor the participants directly through P1's consciousness stream, regardless of location. Might be a little more claustrophobic than viewing through the simulation like normal, but beggars can't be choosers. We’d just have to drop them far enough away from the doors in one of the newer low-priority worlds, and then we’re all set.”
3 regarded 4 carefully as he spoke, trying to gauge the man’s reaction.
4 dropped his chin into his palm and leaned back in the chair, his legs kicking out in front of him as he sighed out a long contemplative "hmmmm."
The flair in which he did all of this would, in most any other case, mean 4 was gearing up to mock him — but the typical follow-up sarcastic remark never came.
He's actually taking this seriously.
“It works in theory, and it’d almost definitely speed up the training results if previous runs are anything to go by,” he said, then paused. “I’m guessing this wouldn’t be above board?”
3 cringed. “Ah... No. Definitely not.”
4 only sighed, stretching his arms out languidly above his head. “You know what... Fuck it. Rather risk a verbal beating from 1 than risk being stuck in sample collection hell for an eternity. Plus, if anything goes wrong, this was your idea, not mine.”
He swept around to face the maintenance array in one swift kick of his leg, picking up the screwdriver on the table that 3 had discarded earlier as he did so.
“I’ll finish this one up for you, ya lousy ass mechanic. Go get that A1 ready for transport,” He said, waving his hand behind him at 3 in a “shoo” motion.
The weight that 3 felt lift from his shoulders at the prospect of never working on that damn P1 model ever again made him want to thank whatever God was out there watching over him.
As 3 stood up to leave, 4 turned to him one more time.
“Hey. Be careful with A1, you hear me? Its AI’s been especially finicky since the last incident. Keep any sensory input to a minimum on the way out. I’ll beat your ass before Admin 0 even gets a chance if you fuck this up."
"Yeah, yeah, I got it. Don't you worry, Princess," 3 huffed sarcastically, waving him off as he stepped out of the room.
—
Admin 3 double checked the blackout blindfold pulled tight around A1's eye for what had to have been the fourth time since he'd brought the participants to the doors leading out into the navigation room — somewhere any AI, even more so an unpredictable one such as A1, was Absolutely Not Supposed To Be Under Any Circumstances.
Damn.
He’d put up a confident front into 4, lest he give the man any more reasons to insult him, but standing in front of the door now felt like he was finally hitting the true point of no return.
A1 was an unknowable, unpredictable variable in this experiment, and it set him on edge in a way words could hardly describe.
On a physical level, he knew A1 better than he knew himself. He could probably recite its chemical composition in his sleep at this point — could list off every line of code etched into its being. But the same confidence could not be expressed for his trust in A1’s obedience.
Unlike P1, A1 had nearly hit the ceiling of its potential at an astounding rate. If one were to ignore the manufactured core of its consciousness, it was nearly identical to the entities from the World Cancer it was created to imitate. It was, by far, his and 4’s greatest accomplishment, and simultaneously the biggest pain in the ass.
They had essentially grown a God in their basement, and as A1 hurdled towards the peak of its emulated Godhood, it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain set parameters that remained effective against its ever-growing capacity to contain a will of its own.
It was ironic — so much struggle as a punishment for doing their job well.
He waved his hand in front of A1's face a few times, watching for any sort of reaction. A1 didn't even twitch; its mind asleep under a layer of mental dampening protocols.
...
Shockingly, he felt no more reassured than he did the first 3 times he checked.
Fuck when did he become such a pussy.
He turned to P1, who stared ahead blankly with empty blue eyes. A1 could stand to learn a thing or two from him.
"Just gotta get you two to the world doors." He muttered to himself, patting him half-heartedly on the shoulder before steeling himself and pushing through the door into the clinical white halls of the Daedalean Tunnels. The pair of AI followed him diligently a few feet behind, their steps in perfect sync.
Objectively, it wasn't anywhere near a long walk (in fact, it was only a little under 5 minutes if Admin 3 hadn't suddenly lost his affinity for numbers), and it was quite rare to accidentally run into another admin around the facility in the first place. Still, when Admin 3 rounded the corner to see that line of iron world doors, the relief he felt was truly palpable.
He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, speeding ahead to reach the end of the hall.
He counted up the numbers above the doors until they reached nearly triple digits. The worlds most recently added to the grid.
The world he had landed on was of very low priority according to its file, being connected to the grid more as a precaution than anything else. With the rest of the Admins’ current workload, it would take them weeks, if not months, to begin any extensive monitoring.
He hit the button by the door, watching it swing open with a -Click-
A comfortable amount of time to let the participants—
-Click-
It was only now that he realized he had not heard the footsteps of A1 and P1 behind him since he had entered the hallway.
3 whipped around in an instant, just in time to make out the bright blue of P1’s hair disappearing behind a door halfway down the hall, urged forward by his companion.
No. No. No no no.
Admin 3 spared barely a second to think before he was leaping forward down the hall, calculations nearly instantaneous in his mind.
Approximately 25 yards.
A1 stood alone at the door now, its partner already having disappeared into the teleporter. The wave of dread that swallowed Admin 3 felt more suffocating than his current sprint.
"SYSTEM RESET- FUCKING- POWER OFF, YOU..." he shouted desperately, practically begging any remnants of this hellspawn of an AI's defective set parameters to get the damn thing under control.
...14 yards…
He pointed a finger out in front of him, aiming at A1, trying to control the adrenaline-fueled shake of his hand as he geared up to shoot.
...10 yards...
A1’s eye curved upwards as if in silent mockery.
...7 yards.
3 fired.
Admin 3’s vision blinked a deep sickly blue, the force behind his shot losing its battle with air resistance, then fading completely somewhere in the empty space the AI had stood only a moment ago.
He skidded to a halt in front of the door, heaving.
Through the bars of the door, he met the deep void of A1's stare for only a second more before it stepped backwards into the teleporter, empty air warping unnaturally as the world smoothed over the gap in its fabric.
3 slammed a fist against the surface of the door.
"SHIT!"
He gritted his teeth, shoving the soul-crushing anxiety and self-loathing as far back into his mind as he could. Rage was something he could settle on for now.
This wasn't over, and unfortunately, some unlucky fuck would be getting their world torn apart pixel by pixel to find those damn-
He lifted his eyes to the sign above the door.
26
"Motherfucker."