Archive of Our Own ^beta

Can I solve all this on my own?

The text pings across the screen at the bottom of the simulation machine, artificial constructions of morals and dreams algorithmically spat out to waste time.

Two choices appear in the same spot, between which Ulrich ticks a dial back and forth to make his decision.

It takes him less than a second.

Companions aren't a burden.

Behind him, Adler bites the inside of his cheek.

The current simulation time sits at 49 minutes and 20 seconds, their fourth run-through of the day for a total of five hours spent in the same room together. Five hours of arguments.

The basis of a contingency plan meant strict, agreed upon protocols, precise planning, and the necessary knowledge to make it through any hiccups. Ulrich, in his infinite kindness, had blown past each principle once he had discovered that the toys used to run the simulations had developed some… quirks. Some semblance of sentience. One minute Adler was squinting at the squabbles of a newsboy piece saying he needed money to shelter his family from the "Storm", to which Ulrich immediately agreed, the next he was—well—the Awakened is still fiddling through the faux researcher's questionnaire.

How do you people out there see us?

Adler blinks.

Ulrich hums, and with a light click, No one should be denied the right to live gets sent back.

He hates it, but—it takes only that singular moment to enrage him. The ease at which Ulrich has pled sympathy to every imagined problem, drug his field exercises to every corner of every map, simpered at dolls.

He'd been bickering with the man since the start, poking, prodding, making pure, spiteful fun of his proceedings. In a way, it was their norm, their harried method of testing themselves to their limits, but something wares and gnaws through Adler so thoroughly in that one instant that his chest goes tight from anger alone.

"Laplace simulating Laplace," he spits. "Eccentrics imagining eccentrics."

The ferrofluid bubbles for a second, processing Adler's next in an endless stream of comments, then doesn't even react. He clacks his pawn along plastic desert tiles to a toy replica of a blimp while red LEDs flash and alarms whir as an approximation of the "Storm" closing in.

Laplace was the worst when it came to preparation.

Not just through segments of their leadership—the individual researchers themselves. Intelligent enough to be mad, mad enough to break back through to genius, and not quite so disciplined as to be able to face the chaos of the "Storm". Adler turns from the machine and his co-lead with his hands dug deep enough in his pockets to trace the stitching.

The comparison itself seems pathetic at first: tidbits of technology and plastic to emulate all the insanity of a "Storm"—his upset over the magnitude of the meteorological event likened to his annoyance over the replication. It doesn't matter so much, not how many times his tongue is bitten, not the minutes slipping by with the whirl of the cooling fan—just a little game for Ulrich to play, and for the "Director" to supervise.

Madame Lucy was still wrong. Adler never wanted this position. He hates the authority.

He hates how his admonishments to Ulrich could be taken as orders, and yet they both keep pushing.

Mostly, right now, he hates that he can't stop thinking of 1985.

Nothing but disorder and the need to purge, some fractured sentiments about their deserved plunge back through time to spit in the face of near-all in science and physics. So many lives lost.

Tic, tic, tic, the chess piece taps along the map.

The simulation presents something simple and clean: categories of citizens falling neatly into factions, an even entrenchment of danger, and formidable critters to wave their arcanum at. Over and over, a little harder, a little more pressure, and no resemblance to reality.

Real life, on the other hand, is indescribable. The most Adler has been able to liken it to when not speaking in non-sober, deriding words, is the world's trauma upsetting history to the point of regress and regurgitation. As with the second storm…

Once, in a very rare while, he craves for the utter misery to fall into his lap again. A little more shut-eye before another decade spills back out.

Beep, beep, beep, the simulation's "Storm" draws near.

Adler's not sure if he just knows better or is too weak-willed to crawl back into that hole again.

Sure as anything, though, they're never going to get any better working like this.

Another return to Ulrich's side, another bit of hate to mete out. It's as good a habit as any.

"Did you have fun on your little trip?" Adler mutters, eyeing the piece of the girl he's spoken to time and again. Her understanding of being alive is superficial at best. The Awakened just muddles through his complaints until he can find an objection, straight line of an expression twisting.

"The truth is right in front of us," is his attempt, too soft to match his efforts so far.

"So is the "Storm!" " Adler hisses back, bubbling over. "The real "Storm." A million times I could tell you the point of this simulation and a million times I would be ignored: what will get through to you?"

"For flux's sake, You are the one lacking understanding, Researcher Adler," he huffs back. "A simulation so advanced it knows the difference between itself and the real world? The organic development of memories and the discarded limitations of their structure? These chess pieces will have thought of a 'million' theories by the time you start saving your breath!"

Adler can't help it. His shoulders square, he teethes at his tongue—having a good foot of height above the other man helps his anger cage over him. "Only by luck's good graces are we both here, alive, despite all the past "Storms," despite being mere seconds from the "Flood." Yet, here you are, putting on a humanitarian act for dolls." He herds them both away from the machine, pressing back and stepping in. "Do you want to save more lives, or is the validation of a program enough for you?"

Ulrich doesn't seem keen to yank himself away, maybe because they finally have each other in such a choke-hold as opposed to throwing words over walls. "I've done my part. We must look beyond conventional means for an unconventional issue! You want to say any idled time, failed projects, correlate directly to casualties?"

"Yes!" he shouts, shaking his hands. "Feel guilty! Feel anything!"

As with the rest, they've gone back and forth on this.

The subject of Ulrich's humanity is a funny anecdote. Ask him to spend any time out of the office and life is a whirlwind of understanding and compromises, but insert him back in the lab and that air of apathy slides over him like a duck to water, ripples and all. Live to work, sleep to dream—every baseless idea has meaning. He seems allergic to empathy in a work environment.

…And the next second, in their silence, a giggled hush comes from behind them. The color drains from Adler's face—and the ferrofluid spills to the bottom of its tank.

"Excuse me," he mumbles, taking one measured step back from Ulrich and feeling the tense air still hover between them. He turns, then makes for the door and the peeping toms being lousy again with their "budget reports."

Just around the edge of the door frame, Researcher Hissabeth gives him a wide-eyed smile as he closes in, and the ducked head of Researcher Medicine Pocket behind her doesn't help their case. Whatever face of his own he makes at them, they're tucking tail and scuttling back just before he slams the door shut with his elbow on the button.

Their fooling about and continued unwarranted comments could be addressed later. Facing around, Ulrich's ferrofluid is slowly circulating the inside of his tank, back at the machine like he's got nothing to worry about. It hums and shines with the visage of the Silver Sanctuary's tray, the headquarters high and pristine and just on the verge of being destroyed with Adler's own programmed-in battle, meant as the simulation's final challenge. Ulrich's hand has even slipped back down to the dial, fiddling with the choice to fold.

"Don't—" Adler bites out, striding back to him; in one swift grab the Awakened's wrist is pinched away by his hand, "be stupid."

The liquid swirls in surprise, maybe apprehension, with little dots sputtering off from the central mass. He hears the light crackle of a circuit overloading.

"I am talking to you, Ulrich. Enough of the simulation. Enough playing pretend." He stoops down again, a few inches from the tank and power-tripping from frustration. Ulrich just watches—a touch intimidating even through an angered haze. The sounds of the game still putter on in the background.

"This… ignorance is baffling. Insane. Why can't you take it seriously?"

"I've been taking this incredibly seriously, actually. All I've heard from you is snide comments and complaints." Ulrich folds one arm across his abdomen like he could cross both, ferrofluid flattening. "If you'd like to give it a try after this current simulation, then by all means. Prove me wrong, find a better way."

He bristles, eyes betraying a flick to the wrist still in his grasp and Ulrich's relative lack of resistance. The problem was surely almost boring to him: a child not waiting for their turn was the essence of Adler's issues. Though—he can't help but set his jaw at the thought. Often enough he imagined the antagonistic, theatrical retorts of the Awakened, and a little too often they felt more self-directed then vicariously imagined. The ugly glob of upset and irritation mixing in his stomach shoots to his throat.

"That has never been the problem, Ulrich! I am asking—begging you to drop this damn facade. It is bad enough that it is fake, and worse still you wish to squander it on simple dolls."

"Squander?" His ferrofluid circles back up and his arm gives a flex. "My wish to help is genuine, Adler—if that weren't the case then the "Artificial Storm" experiment wouldn't have ever left my desk. You're only attacking what you see."

"No, it's because this waste of time—"

"—Or maybe simple jealousy is your—"

"Jealousy!?"

Adler's grip drops like the metal is scalding, mixed with the realization that his chest is heaving. Curses die on his tongue with the pain of embarrassment and Ulrich's no farther than a hand's length away. To the extent that he can express—an exclamation point forms and crumbles in less than a second, the man crackling just a little more. He doesn't offer anything else. If only Adler could break through his stupid, obtuse shell and fix whatever his problem is—

His mind wants to play the enemy at the moment. That thought after such a ridiculous accusation is—vomit-inducing. Adler huffs, lowers his eyes, and has nowhere to turn.

"…I… do suppose," Ulrich begins again with an air of consideration, "this entire time I've paid meticulous attention to the simulation while you've rained down your words of criticism on me. Forgive me for not telling you patience with a pat on the head."

His hand reaches out, doesn't even brush close enough to disturb one strand of hair, but Adler is batting him away anyhow, sullen.

"I am aware enough to know that I have hit a nerve somewhere, Adler, a block of iron could tell. If you would cooperate and see this exercise through, and have it in your heart to forgive me, I presume, then we'll get on just fine. I promise, my efforts are all only towards Laplace's preparation for the storm, even if you can't see it."

Adler doesn't think there's enough spite left in him to go against the idea of just following along, asinine as it would be. If anything, his chest feels unmistakably hollow—whatever he babbles won't matter. In front of him is their end state: always a little slower, a little less calculating than Ulrich. If he could just see it.

Seven months ago, the Awakened had been the one berating him every chance he got in their frantic scramble to figure out an incantation that'd cost lives. Always, constantly the fool for being the human in the room. Maybe it's why he's irked just that much more by his crusade for humanitarianism—or their reversal is humiliating. If Ulrich had truly been changed by his time out in the field—then Adler's only grown worse in the absence; any contribution seems distant. He can't even rest on his stolen laurels.

Would Laplace ever really be ready?

The higher ups had cast out the brightest hope of their institution, burning the bridge for policy's sake and letting come what may. The successor should have been anyone else. The successor should have been anyone that wants to wake up in the morning. Biting again, his cheek revolts and tastes of blood.

"…No, keep playing, Ulrich," Adler wraps his arms around himself, hunching, sinking. His mental image is blank for a moment, empty of a future. "March on with blind promises. Maybe I should pray you never see what it costs to care."

The air is abuzz. It isn't just the machine idling behind them—he's gotten under Ulrich's metaphorical skin. The circuits just keep humming. That, and the ferrofluid wobbling towards an X shape at least mark that the other man heard him. It is… gratifying. Until the seconds keep passing in silence, and until Adler can only think about what he's implied as he stares at his reflection in the glass tank. Like Ulrich has much to lose.

But he's putting up his hands like a plea for peace. Though Ulrich is the one cornered, he still presents with equal footing.

"I'll admit it: I misjudged." His expression morphs to a wavy line. "But there's no need for such extremes. In fact, I'll demonstrate for you right now."

Before he can wonder what Ulrich could possibly even do, before the sinking feeling can leave him, the hands reach out and… hold around his torso. Adler goes stiff as a pole.

"Oh, don't fuss, this is a standard beginning to any apology."

"What?" half chokes out of his mouth, getting the urge to fully retch. Ulrich is touching him. Ulrich is hugging him. Very truly Adler feels like a sick dog.

He can't even react normally, let alone in surprise. A sweat breaks out on his back and every millimeter of his body that's being enveloped itches with the sensation. He can only stare at the wall and think please over and over.

"…Flux. Just work with me, Adler." He has the gall to squeeze the man, and he might genuinely hurl. Adler's mind is still begging for absolutely nothing—maybe he wanted to be ruptured out of his depressive miasma so badly his body could only whine need. Not out of much conscious choice, he slumps forward with a white-knuckled grip around Ulrich's shoulders, which is the only place his head can also land.

The contact is unrelentingly warm and ice cold where it shouldn't be. His cheek is stung by the rim of his collar, but heated air blows from a vent hidden somewhere in the gap between parts. A single rushed inhale, and there's the scent of hot metal, dust, and… coffee. Of course. A hysteric bubble of a laugh gets pushed through the seam of Ulrich's neck and breaks the tension.

"What?" the Awakened snaps at the sound, overtly defensive. It seems to correlate with his fingers tensing. A bad idea of more intentional provoking floats by.

"Nothing. You smell."

"Excuse me," infinitely more useful than his simulation theorizing, Adler gets instant results in the form of Ulrich's hands coming up with more force. "Unbelievable—you must be perfectly fine then."

He opts to chew at his lip and be brazen. "I'd thought you'd say deeply unwell."

The fan puffs a little harder. "That's one option."

Beep be-beep. Click.

They both react to it like a bomb going off: the sound of the lab door unlocking.

"Oh, hello Ulrich, Director Adler. Might I interrupt…?"

In a flurry of limbs, they disengage—or at least try. Ulrich still has an arm around Adler's back by the time they're both facing around to meet their intruder. By the saccharine tone of voice, though, it's obvious who it is.

"Researcher X!" Ulrich's ferrofluid seems to be melting. "That door was locked!"

"Don't say that," Adler hisses under his breath, praying to anything that would listen that the teenage inventor was too air-headed to care about just how close together they were.

"Indeed it was—and now it is not. I have that budget report from the Physics Department you were after, Mister Enigma." He waggles a folder in the air, head tilting. "Did I make it just in time?"

"P—Pardon?" The sweat returns to his back at an excessive rate.

Eyes swiveling up and off to the side, X has mere seconds to determine their fate. He graces them with an effortless smile.

"Your current simulation is at the very end of its run, no?"

Right. The sanctuary. And the Enigma machine hovering menacingly nearby. His brain had heaped any earthly worries the moment Ulrich's hand was a little too close.

"Could I stay and watch you fight it out?"

Adler feels faint from not having to face any sort of confrontation—and the light touch still on his back. To his utter mortification, Ulrich uses it to step them both back to the machine.

"I don't see why not," the Awakened hums, casual as ever. He's back to his position at the map and fiddling away with menus while X observes. "Let's see just how difficult you'll be…"

Now feels an appropriate time as any to start lashing out again, watching as Ulrich confronts the boss battle-fied version of the man he's keeping right by his hip in the real world. Adler will surely lecture him to the point of understanding his original complaints with their newly crossed boundary later.

"Bastard."