SquidgeWorld Archive

"What? C'mon, this is the third time! I know I'm smarter than this. I'm not going to just hand you the archive's location," the Harper archive protection simulacrum said.

It still shocked Harper to see this image of himself, with his old crazy spiky hair, bopping around as the archive's guardian through Andromeda's matrix. He may have designed this thing himself while he briefly had the archive jammed into his brain, but he didn't, couldn't, understand his upgraded self's thinking processes. Hell, his upgraded self hadn't entirely understood his own thinking processes. The power and glory of having all of recorded knowledge within easy access had been canceled out by the excruciating pain having it in there had caused, the mood swinging, and the way his poor brain had flitted randomly from idea to idea, finishing nothing, like a bird flying over a field full of new, pretty shinies. He'd slept for a day not long after getting it out of his head.

"Cool down," Harper said. "I found the archive. Your sun pin hint worked like a charm. In fact, the archive even gave me--" He had to stop himself. Did he really want to do this?

Was he this pathetic?

"Then I don't have a reason to exist anymore." A moment of panic flashed across his... its face. *Its* face. It had that much self-awareness at least, even if the rest of it seemed to have very limited responses.

It didn't want to die either. The thought gave Harper a shiver, even though he wasn't in his body at the moment. He tried to let the cool blue lines and low hum of the matrix environment calm him down.

"Nah, I'm not here to erase you. I wanted to talk to you. Or at you. Truth is, I just need to talk." Pathetic. Like confiding in your talking teddy bear. Or a mirror. He might have a psychotic break talking to something that looked like himself like this.

"To me? I thought I had friends."

"You do-- We do-- *I* do, but I can't talk to them about this, Junior. It gets them depressed and angry, so they shut me down to 'protect' me. But I have to talk." Harper could see the program straining to adapt to conversation outside its design. "Damn. This is just too stupid. I'll leave you alone--"

"No, I can listen. Look, you can't give me a lead like that and then just go away without telling me what's going on. I'm a smart little program; I'll adapt. Lay it on me. What the hell is going on?"

"I was impregnated with Magog larvae."

From the look on its face, Junior understood that well enough. It had his expressions along with his looks. Spooky.

"You can't be. Whoa, did somebody upload you to the matrix so you wouldn't have to feel yourself die?"

"No!" Talking to the program was supposed to make him feel *better*? "No, I'm still alive. We have a serum that's keeping them dormant, but eventually they'll gain a resistance, wake up, and kill me. The archive and the babe got me access to technology that might help me save myself, but I have to figure it out on my own." Harper took a deep breath, even though his virtual self didn't breathe. Okay, a deep virtual breath. "And I'm so tired. Even here I'm tired."

"You can't talk about this to Beka?"

"It kills her to think about it, so she tries not to. She changes the subject if I start up. I know she loves me, and that's why she doesn't want to hear about it. I don't wanna think about it, so how can I throw it on her back? Besides, the drug aspect of my
continuing existence gives her the squirms."

"Hunh?"

"She got addicted to Flash for a bit. Happened a while after I made you."

There should have been smoke pouring from its ears. "Straight-edged Beka on drugs. Okay. Why can't you talk to Dylan?"

"He's not totally stable, especially where the Magog are concerned."

"Trance?"

"She's been getting weirder lately all on her own."

"Rev? I mean, even though he's a Magog himself and all...."

"He's never around."

Junior shook its head. Harper noticed that it didn't mention Tyr, not that Harper could have talked about it with Mr. Where There's Life There's Hope So Stop Whining, even if Tyr had briefly had his own gutload of spawn. And Rommie might see any confession as a prelude to another suicide attempt and restrain him for his own good.

"So it's just me?"

"Yeah."

Junior nodded and crossed its arms. "Okay. I'll listen."

**************

"Hey, what happened this time? You look like shit," Junior asked.

"I went back to Earth."

"It's worse than just that, isn't it?"

"Dylan told me that the Andromeda wouldn't help Earth rise up against the Drago-Bastards unless I roused the people up first and made it easier for him. He promised he'd come." How could he be so damned close to tears when his virtual self didn't even have tear ducts? At least he felt a tiny bit better, a little calmer, in the matrix, where he couldn't feel his body, which still had some adrenaline aftereffects pulsing through it.

"He didn't make it."

"And people died. Lots of people. Brendan might be dead--"

"Brendan?" Junior looked horrified.

"My cousin--"

"I know."

"I don't know if he's still alive or not. You can't get anywhere near Earth now that the Dragans clamped back down after they beat the shit out of the rebellion. The... reprisals are gonna be bad. I know they will."

"What did Dylan have to say?"

"He said that by rising up, we won."

Junior actually threw off sparks. "Did he apologize for destroying the lives of probably thousands or even millions of people?"

"What do you think? He couldn't make it there, so he couldn't make it there. 'No plan of battle survives the first engagement.' Not that Dylan even gave me that much, since Rommie was the person who let me in on that bit of the wit and wisdom of Dylan Hunt. End of story."

"Are you still...."

"Yeah."

"You're still sick, and he sent you?"

"Nobody else would have had a shot at getting the people to rebel." Harper sighed. "That probably would have been better. We're not ever going back, ya know. I was the only one on the ship who really cared anyway. Beka kind of cared, but only because she knew it was important to me."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Well. Not your fault." Harper ran his virtual hand through his virtual hair, feeling little electric tingles from it. "I'm working on a cure for myself, using some technology I got during that situation with the archive. I got a way to go on it, though."

"You can't keep the Harper down." Junior looked annoyed. "Would be nice if people would quit trying to."

****************

"You look like you went through the wringer."

Harper paced. Even here, he felt the need to move. "Only 'cause I did. My head's a mess. I'm cured. No more monster babies."

Junior did a celebratory bounce. "Yeah!"

It looked so much like a younger version of him. But at the same time not. Junior had its own gestures and expressions in addition to his.

"But the cost of me living was Höhne dying."

"What?"

"And Trance traded places with her future self, and that future self was the one to switch on the machine to cure me. I wasn't gonna do it, since if I used the machine, Höhne would stay dead, and I couldn't live if it meant he had to stay dead."

"Hunh? Could you start from the beginning for the people walking into the movie late?"

*************

"--so I'm alive and uninfested, Höhne's dead, Rev's gone, and who the hell knows what's up with Trance now."

"How do you feel?"

Harper started to laugh, but then he couldn't stop. It was scary. Junior put its arms around him and held him, which was weird and nice and tingly. Except that then he was shaking and laughing for a while. Eventually he wound down. The advantage of having a fit in his virtual body instead of his real one was that he didn't have to worry about the mortifying afterward hiccups. And he had Junior here.

"Thanks," Harper said, being gruff to try to hide his embarrassment. "Sorry about that."

"I'm glad you're alive. Höhne would be too."

"But he's too dead to ask. You know, I had a message ready to send to you in the event of my death, so you'd know. It would have gone off once other people started to go through my programs."

Junior looked stunned and really pleased. "That was... really nice of you."

"You've been good to me. I couldn't deal with the thought of you sticking around in here with nobody knowing enough to tell you that I wouldn't be coming back." Harper felt something. "I think somebody wants me back outside. I'll see you."

"You will?"

"Yeah. Be pretty rotten of me to use you to vent to, then toss you aside once I'm better. Besides, you're a cool guy. So I'll see you. Count on it."

Junior was kind of like his son. No way he'd abandon him.

**************

Harper popped in. "Hey, guy, I think some viruses are running through Rommie's nets. Wanna help me with the bug hunt?"

Junior grinned. "Hell yeah. I'm ready to roll."

After an extensive search, Harper found three and Junior nailed two. "Team Supreme," Harper said as he high-fived Junior. "Crisis averted. We rock."

"That was fun. You got anything else for me?"

"Not now. But you do good work, so I'll keep you in mind."

"Things are better? Outside?"

Harper smiled. "Yeah, things are better. Thanks for asking. See ya later."

"Later."

*********

"You okay in here? Is it big enough for you?"

"I don't take up much space. Just like my daddy."

"Grrrr."

"You have a heart of marshmallow, and you know it. Hey, could you add some dancing girls in here?" Definitely a Harper creation. Not that Junior hadn't developed some personality traits on his own.

"Rommie would definitely notice that."

"Yeah, yeah. There goes my social development."

"If you just want a blow-up doll, I could do that, but if you want a virtual companion with any interactivity, she'd take up a lot of space."

"Good point. Forget about it, then."

Again, definitely a Harper creation. "I'll think about it. Can't make any promises, though."

****************

"All right, what the hell are you?" Rommie said as she grabbed harper-sentryv1 in her giant hand. Drama queen.

"Hey, don't kill me! You'd break Harper's heart. Wouldn't want to do that, would you?" harper-sentryv1 answered. He gave her his most winning look.

"There are times.... What are you, and why are you here?"

He snuggled into her hand. "I started out as a sentry program Harper created while he had the data archive in his head and later became a confidant. Sometimes I help him work. You wouldn't discriminate against another virtual lifeform, would ya? I'm like a candle to your sun anyway, sweet thing, and I don't take up much space."

"You're definitely one of Harper's."

"Is that a size joke?"

Made her smile.

"I'll be good," he said. "Very good. Besides, Harper would miss me. He wouldn't have gotten though the thing with spawn sane without--" Shit!

Rommie looked sad. "I see."

"Uh, nothing against you guys, but you all had your own issues going on and he didn't want to add to them. I was like a release valve, you know?"

"I understand. I won't delete you."

"Great!"

"As long as you behave yourself."

"Rommie. Darling."

"You're transparent."

"So are you."

She sighed, then put him down, to his disappointment. She had a nice hand.

"Just don't make trouble," she said.

"Of course not. Hey, and feel free to visit me anytime, doll."

She rolled her eyes but smiled before she disappeared. Oh yeah, she wanted him. Rommie beat a dancing girl any day of the week. Hey, that would be interesting to watch....

****************

Harper jumped when Rommie popped up next to him in the corridor. "Jeez! Rommie!"

"I met your little friend."

What? Oh. "Rommie, he doesn't take much space, and he's pretty cool once you get to know him. Less annoying than me, even. Can I keep him? Huh? Please? Can I?"

Rommie gave him a long-suffering look, which he answered with a big grin. "He can stay. Just make sure he stays out of trouble."

Yes! "Rommie. Darling."

"I'm going to regret this."

"We are both your devoted servants, milady."

"That's what they all say." She disappeared.

Now that they had Rommie's approval, maybe Harper could add a few things to Junior's environment. Nothing was too good for a Harper....