Touch

Part 14

At some point Jeremy had lowered himself to the floor, knees pulled up against his chest, trying to process what had just happened. He didn't know how long he sat there; just minutes, maybe hours. The Squip hadn't returned, either, leaving a pit in his stomach that threatened to swallow him whole. Did he believe Alex? Should he take the red pill he'd been given? What if something worse happened?

What if Squip never came back?

Jeremy didn't even hear the door to their room open or notice when Michael stepped inside, humming along to whatever he was listening to. He barely even registered when Michael appeared in front of him, on his knees, frantic.

"Holy shit, Jeremy, what happened? Are you okay?" He grasped Jeremy by the shoulders firmly, trying to meet his eyes. "Jeremy!"

"Alex." He'd nearly forgotten that he could talk.

"Alex? The guy from the party?" Michael took a nervous look around. "He did this?" In response, Jeremy held out his hand, opening his fist to reveal the red pill.

"He gave me this." Michael stared at it quizzically.

"...He gave you Mike & Ikes?" Jeremy shook his head.

"Alex said it's an upgrade for the Squip."

"What?"

"He also said he is a Squip." A moment ago his mind had been a foggy blank, too shocked to really make sense of the situation he was in. Now it was suddenly racing a mile a minute. Michael stood up quickly.

"So he's some kind of cyborg or something? How is that possible?" Jeremy didn't have an answer. He was still trying to figure that part out.

"Oh. He took the laptops."

"He took our laptops!?" Michael fisted his hands in his hair, pulling until it looked painful. Jeremy simply sat there and watched. Eventually, Michael slowly lowered his hands, dropping them at his side, deflated. He carefully stepped over a pile of clothes and pressed back against the wall, sliding down to the floor next to him. They were both silent for a while. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know."

"What's Squip saying?"

"It... Alex turned it off, somehow."

"Oh." Michael was weakly hitting the back of his head against the wall, over and over. Thump thump thump. "He didn't hurt you, though, right?"

"I'm fine." Mostly. Sort of. A little. Michael looked at him for a moment, but Jeremy just looked straight ahead. After a brief pause, Michael moved, crawling on all fours to reach underneath his desk. When he sat back he was holding a small plastic bottle. Mountain Dew Red.

"Jeremy, I know the... Squip thing is important to you, but as your friend, I think we've passed the line of acceptable weirdness." Michael was holding the bottle out to him and Jeremy couldn't bring himself to look at it. He knew he was right. The Squip was a supercomputer. It wasn't a real person. It was dangerous, advanced technology that was threatening to ruin their lives once again as it had two years ago. But this time it wasn't the Squip's fault.

He thought about the way it looked at him sometimes, so human and kind it made his chest hurt. Jeremy looked at the bottle and then at his feet.

"I..."

"You need to get rid of it, Jeremy."

"No. I can't."

"Yes, you can. I'll be here the whole time. We'll get through this just like last time."