"So It's War" - Reboot.Exe - S2 Chapter 3

## So It's War

Jenn

"So It's War" is the third chapter of season 2 of Reboot.exe. It was released on 24th June 2022 and is narrated by Dave.

## Episode Synopsis

Before heading back to the soup kitchen for the night, Pr0 heads further into Ugly's bar, looking for Xiang to give her something. He finds her in the basement, packing up illegal drugs, and fusion containers, and handing them off with an attitude to two new, young bomber gang members who have for some reason earned a talking to. Pr0 steps in, and sheepishly hands her a discman - an old school portable CD player. The reason he wants to give this to her, is due to the fact that Pr0 finds the amount of technology they're lacking to be charming, as well as completely un-hackable. There are a total of 13 songs on the mixtape, all with the name "Not Dead, Yet" serving as a thank you for all the training she has given Pr0, as well as putting herself on the line for him, Seb, and Eve multiple times. He also apologizes for not being around so much. Xiang taps into his bionics, and sends a message that reads "We didn't stop talking because I got shot." After not getting the message, Xiang reiterates "I've lost as many friends from that shit you snort than I have from gunshot wounds." Pr0 looks down, ashamed. He goes on to explain how one of the lyrics in the songs hits personal to him and his situation, but then decides to head off for the night.

Eve heads back to Xiang's room for the night, but not before walking up to Seb, and putting some sort of medical alert necklace around his neck for emergency purposes, without really considering that he has no way of pressing it.

Seb is left alone on the couch for sometime, before he recognizes Xiang walking into the room. They both quickly discover that they are unable to communicate between the two of them in Seb's current state, and will need a translator. After a few hours of sitting together, Xiang reaches her arm around Seb's shoulder, and her other around his waist, gesturing to him if it would be okay if she picked him up. He agrees, and she takes him to her room. Xiang carefully places him on the spare bed in her room that Songbird slept in for a while.

After a while of Eve gaming, Xiang sends her a message, saying how it is literally impossible for her and Seb to communicate with each other. Eve offers her assistance as a translator. Xiang and Seb are both instantly open about how awkward it is for them to talk like this, and Xiang stating that talking is awkward for her in the best of times. Xiang kindly reassures him that she won't forget the things that Seb can't do for himself, and will never expect him to perform the same way he was before all of this happened to him. She recognizes his entire life has changed for the worse, and she is the best person to understand this, having gone through torture in her past. Xiang promises that Seb will ultimately heal back to what he was physically, while she will never return to the way she was - and that should be something to look forward to. Xiang does put up an offer for a change of scenery if he wants to be around someone else, but that she will always be there for him, and she promises that her room will be quite at least for tonight, and that he hasn't seen Eve's true "gamer rage" yet. Xiang then goes on to information dump about drones. as they appear to be a hyper fixation of hers. One thing she highlights in this excited rant is that drones are basically built on a human's brain framework, built to try and emulate the way the human brain functions, limiting their capacities to human level - showing their main difference from A.I.

As Pr0 returns to the kitchen, he begins another deep dive into the circle and captives, starting the red string cycle all over again.

Eve asks Xiang to fill her in on her side of the story of what happened the night when they rescued Seb. She initially misunderstands, and begins regaling the night of the attack on The Glass Slipper. She gives the basic run down, bringing attention to the statement "We hacked Bagrov in the car to pull information out for Riley, who was someone that Pr0 started screaming about. We both brute force dumped everything we had into him and he was dying. He had Reboot, and right when he was dying and we were dumping viruses and hacking, he died and his reboot triggered; but it malfunctioned. There was a data spike. She was disconnected, but Pr0 wasn't." After a few questions from Eve, Xiang confirms that onboard computing can, and will be easily hacked in the right/wrong circumstances. She has seen people being virtually lobotomized by other hackers who are able to puppeteer from the inside. Xiang that states that virus removal can be possible, dependent on where the data is being written / erased from.

Eve clarifies that she wishes to hear about the night when she, Ugly, Pr0, and Conrado went to go save Seb. Xiang quickly explained that they started off silently, which Ugly really didn't like. Xiang took out a few guards, but things started getting intense when Eve started shooting. Xiang hesitates in saying that things really started hitting the fan when Ugly saw Pr0 and started acting stupid. She said that he didn't take the tactile approach of knowing that he had the upper hand by somewhat surprising them, and instead choose to cause a scene, which in turn got him shot. Seb finds out that Eve was shot during the altercation. Seb thanks her again for all of the work she did to help him out, and Xiang jokingly prods, saying that she assumed that there would be a big reward at the end of everything. Seb smiles, and says that there could potentially be something if they go to see his parents, which he needs to do soon anyway. As Seb's eyes continue to regrow, he is able to see more and more. Pulsating red, white and black shapes have appeared in his vision. If something crosses his line of sight or if he is passed under a very bright light, there is a red tinged waft that appears.

Pr0 stayed up all night while Seb and Eve stayed at Ugly's, switching the red string gears onto Riley. There have been significant changes to the slums surrounding the soup kitchen. It has partially become a bomber gang hide away, but there is also a new cybernetic engineer that has been offering her services to restore and reuse the giant pile of cybernetic limbs that was recovered from the Cog base to people asking for, and needing them. Pr0 has been appearing a few times daily in the soup kitchen, offering a ladle a bowl or two, sweep the floor, but mostly stay out of the way and under the radar. As this night drags on, his effort lies in trying to work himself into exhaustion, so that sleep will just come to him, without having to try.

After a night of fitful, torturous, nightmarish visions replaying in his head while he slept, he wakes up from his own hand being out of his control, hitting the bedside table, clamping down on a bottle of pills that will allow him to sleep until noon. When he wakes up, he chooses to not take any drugs, and remains tired on the way to Ugly's.

As Pr0 walks down the street, a child, no older than nine bumps into him, obviously having pickpocketed him. Pr0 instantly tries to trip the kid, but he slides out of his jacket, and bolts down the street. Pr0 easily catches up to him down an alleyway. There is a man who holds his hand up in front of the boy, stopping him instantly. The man has short, greying hair, is wearing a patchy coat, and looks to be in his late 30s. There is a cigarette between his lips as he talks. The man looks down to the boy, and tell him that he knows better than to go after bomber gang members, specifically Pr0\_D1gy. Pr0 is taken aback by a stranger knowing his name.

The man introduces himself as Chessex who has been around these parts due to knowing that soup kitchen has been here for a while, and while he offers advice to the children on the street to simply keep them alive - he can offer much more than just that for Ugly or Pr0 himself, saying that if they ever need someone to gather information in an old-style, "gumshoes" way, that he's the right person to ask. He also offers Pr0 his services in teaching, as well as feeding in the kitchen, that he should bring up a training program or something similar down in the kitchen. Pr0 says not much more than "he'll think about it" and then continues to Ugly's.

Upon arriving to Ugly's, Pr0 sees that Seb is finally in a wheelchair and is able to be moved more freely. There is also an email for Eve, asking to schedule a time to chat with the mysterious caller. Pr0 also has three emails from Isaac Clement's personal assistant, saying that the meeting needs to happen soon, or else all offers will be off the table. There are also nine voicemails from Oscar and Nyla. Pr0 asks to talk to both Seb and Eve, interrupting Eve as she is drawing out schematics of what looks to be a monster wheelchair. Pr0 asks Eve if she wants to talk to the caller today, which she accepts, scheduling the time for 6p.m. that night. Eve grabs a drink at the bar, while Pr0 and Seb talk. Seb says that he should have known better and what to expect from doing something that dangerous in somewhere so unfamiliar to him. Pr0 knows that he would have no way of knowing what to expect, and doesn't blame him for anything. Pr0, with good intentions, practically shoves the glass of whiskey into Seb's teeth, while offering him a drink. Xiang sees how awkward the interaction went, and instead returns with three straws shoved into one another, and places that in front of Seb, so he can drink at his own leisure.

As the day passes, its time for their meeting. Eve invites Xiang to sit in on their meeting. She agrees. They call the voice, and the first thing "he" asks is if her name is still "Eve." She replies, "Of course." He then asks her about her day, and what she did. After she says she took her normal stroll to the nearby 7-11, he asks her if making her own choices made her feel different from the other drones. After a lukewarm response, he asks her if she feels kinship more towards man, or machine. She replies that she views them as equals. Hearing this, he then pushes her to answer a more complex question, asking her to draw the line between sentient drone, and a simple child's toy that lights up and makes sounds. "a machine that is just a toy for mankind." She states that she is unable to answer this question at this time for him. After a few iterations of the question, and receiving the same answer. he says that he doesn't think that she's being very compliant. Instead of scolding her, he simply askes if he believes that her cognition has reached its maximum, and that she's been rebound by programming that she recently thought to be broken. She rejects this claim, saying that every day is a new chance to learn something new. He asks her what she's learned today, and she explains that she has been drawing engineering schematics for a more efficient wheelchair. He finds this to be a little odd, as by human standards, she is no longer a nurse drone, but is now unemployed, and up to choose whatever she sees fit. She asks him what he thinks she should be doing instead, and he quickly steps back, saying that he shouldn't be the one to influence her - and instead, work to influence others by her mere existence and sentience.

The caller begins to wrap up their conversation, saying that what he's offered her in return for these conversations is expiring, and that there was truly nothing more that he could have done to postpone it any longer. He says that he is interested in continuing and further developing their relationship, and asks what it will cost him. Eve says that she will continue talking with him, if he is able to get more information on the doctor that was responsible for the corpse robots where Seb was found. He says that he can absolutely get information on him, but that they should be incredibly careful while dealing with him and should under no circumstances try to track him down. He is an extremely accomplished cybernetic surgeon that was let go due to multiple ethical violations of conduct, and while his research proved "illuminating" for many companies after it was seized and declared illegal and lead to several developments in cybernetics, all without his permission, it is incredibly dangerous, illegal, and unethical. The voice reiterates that time is slipping off of the table with the Clements, and urges Seb to talk to him before its too late, regardless of his current physical state.

As they hang up the phone with the caller, they turn their attention back to other problems at hand, the most pressing one being getting in contact with Seb's parents, and setting up the meeting with the Clements. Seb wants to postpone the call until the next day, which Pr0 says he will honor.

The night rolls on, and Ugly returns. Pr0 asks him if he's ever heard of someone named Chessex, who Ugly is unfamiliar with. Pr0 explains that Chessex asked him to reach out to both Ugly and Conrado, extending his offer to educate people at the soup kitchen, and information services. Ugly explains that it's essentially up to Pr0 to decide if he wants to have him in the kitchen or not and Pr0 says that he'll keep an eye out, and if he sees him again, he'll ask.

After almost two hours pass, the almighty 'Tilda returns to the bar, absolutely drenched in bright red blood. 'Tilda walks in, seemingly uninjured, and confident walks further into the bar, saying that she tried to call Ugly. After asking what had happened, Ugly explained that "it's a bloodbath of that charity join you got." Explaining that the soup kitchen got hit with gang bangers with guns and fire blazing.

Pr0 instantly bolts out of the bar, and sprints ten minuets through the slums to the kitchen. The windows of the kitchen have been blown out. There are bodies of civilians who were caught in the crossfire, a few dead bomber gang members. There are already slummers looting the dead bodies lying outside the smoldering building.

Pr0 steps closer, seeing a rail spike shot through the front of the door, and on the center is a stabbed human heart just on its own. Below it, lies an identical Styrofoam container that was in the organ harvesting den where they found Seb. Running into the kitchen, Pr0 sees a family at the table who were caught in the crossfire of the attack, lying dead at the table. Pr0 bolts upstairs, and grabs what will keep his operation most efficient. Before running out of his red string room, he catches the vision of his wall of photos, pins, and red string being singed and burnt as all of the photos crinkle around a smiling capture of the mad doctor, grinning, before the fire consumes that one as well.

Eve and 'Tilda start gathering supplies and begin heading out of the bar. Ugly slams his fist against the table, eyes narrowing, but doesn't get up to join them. As they both make their way back to the kitchen, Eve approaches a defeated Pr0 on his knees, head and fist resting against the outside wall of the kitchen, asking if he saw Conrado there at all. 'Tilda confirms that Conrado is hardly at the kitchen anymore, as he's too busy with the Bombers. Eve squeezes Pr0's shoulder, before going off to aid the injured people outside of the kitchen.

-YHTris

## TL;DR

* Before heading back to the soup kitchen for the night, Pr0 heads further into Ugly's bar, looking for Xiang to give her something - an old school portable CD player. There are a total of 13 songs on the mixtape, all with the name "Not Dead, Yet" serving as a thank you for all the training she has given Pr0, as well as putting herself on the line for him, Seb, and Eve multiple times.
* Seb is left alone on the couch for some time, before he recognizes Xiang walking into the room. They both quickly discover that they are unable to communicate between the two of them in Seb's current state, and will need a translator.
* After a while of Eve gaming, Xiang sends her a message, saying how it is literally impossible for her and Seb to communicate with each other. Eve offers her assistance as a translator. Xiang and Seb are both instantly open about how awkward it is for them to talk like this. Xiang kindly reassures him that she won't forget the things that Seb can't do for himself, and will never expect him to perform the same way he was before all of this happened to him.
* Pr0 returns to the kitchen, he begins another deep dive into the circle and captives, starting the red string cycle all over again.
* Eve asks Xiang to fill her in on her side of the story of what happened the night when they rescued Seb. She begins regaling the night of the attack on The Glass Slipper. She gives the basic run down, bringing attention to the statement "We hacked Bagrov in the car to pull information out for Riley, who was someone that Pr0 started screaming about. We both brute force dumped everything we had into him and he was dying. He had Reboot, and right when he was dying and we were dumping viruses and hacking, he died and his reboot triggered; but it malfunctioned. There was a data spike. She was disconnected, but Pr0 wasn't."
* Xiang confirms that onboard computing can, and will be easily hacked in the right/wrong circumstances. She has seen people being virtually lobotomized by other hackers who are able to puppeteer from the inside. Xiang that states that virus removal can be possible, dependent on where the data is being written / erased from.
* As Seb's eyes continue to regrow, he is able to see more and more. Pulsating red, white and black shapes have appeared in his vision. If something crosses his line of sight or if he is passed under a very bright light, there is a red tinged waft that appears.
* After a night of fitful, torturous, nightmarish visions replaying in his head while he slept, he wakes up from his own hand being out of his control, hitting the bedside table, clamping down on a bottle of pills that will allow him to sleep until noon. When he wakes up, he chooses to not take any drugs, and remains tired on the way to Ugly's.
* As Pr0 walks down the street, a child, no older than nine bumps into him, obviously having pickpocketed him. Pr0 easily catches up to him down an alleyway. A man looks down to the boy, and tell him that he knows better than to go after bomber gang members, specifically Pr0\_D1gy. Pr0 is taken aback by a stranger knowing his name.
* The man introduces himself as Chessex who has been around these parts due to knowing that soup kitchen has been here for a while, and while he offers advice to the children on the street to simply keep them alive - he can offer much more than just that for Ugly or Pr0 himself, saying that if they ever need someone to gather information in an old-style, "gumshoes" way, that he's the right person to ask. He also offers Pr0 his services in teaching, as well as feeding in the kitchen, that he should bring up a training program or something similar down in the kitchen.
* Upon arriving to Ugly's, there is an email for Eve, asking to schedule a time to chat with the mysterious caller. Eve invites Xiang to sit in on their meeting. She agrees. They call the voice.
* After she says she took her normal stroll to the nearby 7-11, ‘he” asks her if making her own choices made her feel different from the other drones. After a lukewarm response, he asks her if she feels kinship more towards man, or machine. She replies that she views them as equals. Hearing this, he then pushes her to answer a more complex question, asking her to draw the line between sentient drone, and a simple child's toy that lights up and makes sounds. "a machine that is just a toy for mankind." She states that she is unable to answer this question at this time for him.
* He asks if he believes that her cognition has reached its maximum, and that she's been rebound by programming that she recently thought to be broken. She rejects this claim, saying that every day is a new chance to learn something new. He asks her what she's learned today, and she explains that she has been drawing engineering schematics for a more efficient wheelchair. He finds this to be a little odd, as by human standards, she is no longer a nurse drone, but is now unemployed, and up to choose whatever she sees fit. She asks him what he thinks she should be doing instead, and he quickly steps back, saying that he shouldn't be the one to influence her - and instead, work to influence others by her mere existence and sentience.
* The caller begins to wrap up their conversation, saying that what he's offered her in return for these conversations is expiring, and that there was truly nothing more that he could have done to postpone it any longer. He says that he is interested in continuing and further developing their relationship, and asks what it will cost him. Eve says that she will continue talking with him, if he is able to get more information on the doctor that was responsible for the corpse robots where Seb was found.
* He says that he can absolutely get information on him, but that they should be incredibly careful while dealing with him and should under no circumstances try to track him down. He is an extremely accomplished cybernetic surgeon that was let go due to multiple ethical violations.
* As they hang up the phone with the caller, they turn their attention back to other problems at hand, the most pressing one being getting in contact with Seb's parents, and setting up the meeting with the Clements. Seb wants to postpone the call until the next day, which Pr0 says he will honor.
* After almost two hours pass, the almighty 'Tilda returns to the bar, absolutely drenched in bright red blood. Ugly explained that "it's a bloodbath of that charity join you got." Explaining that the soup kitchen got hit with gang bangers with guns and fire blazing.
* Pr0 instantly bolts out of the bar, and sprints ten minutes through the slums to the kitchen. The windows of the kitchen have been blown out. There are bodies of civilians who were caught in the crossfire, a few dead bomber gang members. There are already slummers looting the dead bodies lying outside the smoldering building.
* Pr0 steps closer, seeing a rail spike shot through the front of the door, and on the center is a stabbed human heart just on its own. Below it, lies an identical Styrofoam container that was in the organ harvesting den where they found Seb.
* Before running out of his red string room, Pr0 catches the vision of his wall of photos, pins, and red string being singed and burnt as all of the photos crinkle around a smiling capture of the mad doctor, grinning, before the fire consumes that one as well.
* Eve and 'Tilda start gathering supplies and begin heading out of the bar. Ugly slams his fist against the table, eyes narrowing, but doesn't get up to join them. As they both make their way back to the kitchen, Eve approaches a defeated Pr0 on his knees, head and fist resting against the outside wall of the kitchen, asking if he saw Conrado there at all. 'Tilda confirms that Conrado is hardly at the kitchen anymore, as he's too busy with the Bombers. Eve squeezes Pr0's shoulder, before going off to aid the injured people outside of the kitchen.

-YHT