"One Eye Open" - Reboot.exe - S1 Chapter 18

## One Eye Open

Jenn

"One Eye Open" is the eighteenth chapter of season 1 of Reboot.exe. It was released on 25 April 2021 and is narrated by Dave.

## Synopsis

Staying the night in Xiang’s room at Ugly’s Motors, Eve awakens to a loud crash. She quietly enters the hallways just in time to see the door to Ugly’s room closing. She overhears Incongruent comforting Ugly as he has a panic attack. The next morning Ugly acts as if everything is normal, and Eve does the same.

Meanwhile, Pr0 (escorted by Seb, his “owner”) has his surgery. It goes decently but the recovery will be rough (he has a level 3 injury for gameplay purposes), given that he has an eye removed and replaced, as well as onboard computing implanted into his brain. He stays a night in the hospital before being released to Seb along with a prescription for painkillers and Fusion (now twice the dose he needed before).

Eve checks in via text to make sure Pr0 is being taken care of and then goes to Ugly’s Motors. She notices that most of Ugly’s people tend to come and go via some underground entrance. Eve goes down to the warehouse level and looks around but doesn’t pry. She does witness a shipment of Fusion being unloaded and what looks to be narcotics being packaged. She bumps into Ugly at the bar and asks him how he slept. He acts as if nothing happened. Eve tells him that Pr0’s surgery went well and inquires of the two men of Ugly’s that she assisted (in the previous episode). They are fine, but Ugly tells her that things are escalating in the slums and invites her to stay with his Gang.

Several hours later, Eve encounters Johnny/Incongruent and asks him if they could share stories, specifically enquiring as to how he met Ugly. He agrees and leads her to a private lounge downstairs, which empties out as soon as he gives the word. They play rock paper scissors to see who will tell their story first. Much to Eve’s amusement, Incongruent cheats, and she agrees to go first.

She explains that she was bought for an elderly family with a Bespoke child who would stay a baby forever, but that it was sickly and suffering, and she was forced to make difficult choices. “Everyone perished, and I left.” Incongruent questions what made her become sentient, and she thinks it was the impossible choice she was confronted with, saying that, “Suddenly, logic wasn’t a part of it.” Incongruent confesses that he too faced an impossible decision which created him. He says he was tasked with disposing of the person he was built to care for, implying that he was created to raise Ugly. He laments that he could not protect the child, but saw everything, saying that “Now, I will never fail to protect him.”

They marvel at the similarities between their stories “A child in impossible distress and unthinkable cruelty. An impossible choice”. Incongruent asks Eve not to let on that she knows anything, and she agrees and thanks him for sharing. Incongruent asks her to stay with them permanently, and she avoids the question.

The next day, Seb asks Conrado for training in firearms, specifically a handgun. He doesn’t have one, so Conrado agrees to try and find one for him, but it will take a couple of days. Eve does a bit of training with Xiang but all of Ugly’s Gang seems quite busy.

The next morning, it’s time for Pr0’s bandages to be removed. Pr0 is still in a great deal of pain, but in a good mood, perhaps due to Dr. Rekor’s impeccable bedside manner. With some teasing from both the doctor and Seb, the bandages are removed and the new cybernetic eye is activated. Pr0 is taught some basic commands and warned of the new vulnerabilities his connection to the internet creates. He is sore, but it’s manageable (his injury level is reduced to 2). His new eye grants better perception (plus 1 to perception. Losing his headphones when being mugged has also rehabilitated his disabling characteristic of no base-3-on-environmental-perception by 1 point).

They return to the slums. Pr0 spends a few hours practicing with his new implants while Seb works at the soup kitchen, and then they head to Ugly’s to meet with Eve and discuss the plan (or rather, the fact that they should make a plan). Over the past few days, a couple of Ugly’s people have been killed, along with innocent civilians, as the gang war has gone south and the anti-cyborg movement seems to be growing. Johnny is looking after Songbird and she is slowly returning to her old self.

After a short wait, the three are allowed into the private rooms, where they meet Ugly and a few gangers. Ugly approves of Pr0 trying to make himself more useful but is disappointed that the crew still have no plan, saying that he has a gang war to fight and he’s too busy to do everything for them. Eve and Pr0 can only decide that they should surveil The Glass Slipper before striking. Various gangers (Dave practicing his accent work) berate the group for not having a plan already and offer suggestions of their own. Seb doesn’t contribute much, and Eve is the only one who seems to have any ideas. She suggests that they send in Seb to interact with the targets, asking if they can disguise him, to which Ugly replies that they shouldn’t disguise him at all, but instead use him as bait.

Incongruent arrives, clearly fresh from a fight, and asks Eve not to go on the mission. He says the loss of a medical drone would be too great to the organization, but clearly he means it would be too great a loss *to him*. Eve refuses to stay behind.

Xiang, clearly frustrated, gets up and takes over the projector in the room. She chews them out via text, then volunteers to go on the mission and demands they sort some things out. When she asks for a team leader, Pr0 unhappily steps up. Xiang is unimpressed and looks pointedly at Seb, but Seb but he refuses to take charge.

Ugly hopes that Xiang can teach them a thing or two and instructs her to fetch some devices that will be of use. Seb will need to plug them in once he’s inside, and then Xiang will have an opening for her jacking cybermancy talents. Johnny reminds Pr0 that his new implants make him vulnerable and tells him only to use his anarchistic cybermancy as a last resort. Incongruent tells Eve to call him if the need is dire but says that there will be catastrophic consequences for revealing his involvement in the scheme to the Busy Gang.

Ugly gives them one last warning that there will be no second chances and no mercy. He wishes them luck. At the end of the episode the plan is as follows: case the joint, take Xiang, send Seb inside to plant the devices while Pr0 keeps an eye on things from outside, and- well, luckily they’ve got a few hours left to figure out the rest.

## TL;DR

* Pr0 had surgery to get new cybernetic implants (ocular bionics and discrete onboard computing) and is recovering.
* Eve found out that Incongruent was created to care for Ugly and acheived sentience when ordered to kill him.
* Xiang is coming on the mission and there is maybe 35% of a plan.
* They are going to surveil The Glass Slipper before they strike.