Heathens: Chapter IX

It's been so long...since I last actually reviewed and posted for this. 

ix. 

“Just stay put for once,” A snaps. They look like they’re about to strangle him with the gel strip in their hands somehow. 

B glares back at them from the mirror. “You’re not doing it right.”

“I’m trying to, but you keep moving,” A says. Just out of spite, they slap the strip onto his back so hard he thinks he probably lost a lung. 

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks,” A says, tearing out the lining of another gel strip. B tries to turn to take it out of their hands, but they slap his arm away.  “Try that one more time and I’m going to be digging my nails into your wounds.”

“That’s counterproductive to you offering your help, then,” B says, “Which is already not helping, by the way.”

“Fuck off,” A says, “At least I’m not letting you make your shoulder worse again. It’s already dislocated and you still insist on moving too much”

Said arm was currently out of its sling from him trying to put the gel strips on his back. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m a lot more high-maintenance now,” he says.

“Which was why I offered to help, asshole,” A says. “We’re going back to the hospital later.”

“What?” He tries to turn again and A forcefully makes him face the mirror. When he tries to move, they hold his face in place, gel strip pinned between two fingers. He narrows his eyes at them again. “I didn’t make my shoulder worse, you just thought I did.”

“Tell that to the bruise you’re gonna get in a few hours.”

He just tries to stare them down. A slaps the new gel strip onto his back and he tries not to fall off the bed. 

“I feel really cared for when you’re mad about a possible injury while giving me new ones.”

“I’m putting your gel packs on you, stop complaining.”

“I need my lungs, A,” he says, “And actually - hey, isn’t it illegal to be mistreating a prisoner. Why am I not getting any defense from MONIKA here, or even Matt.”

B’s phone, on the same dresser where the mirror he and A are facing is on, buzzes as its screen lights up. “Sir Matt is currently offline, sir.”

“I’m not mistreating you, you just won’t stay still,” A says, and then makes a show of gently smoothing out a new strip on the nape of his neck. He flips them off. 

“Put your goddamn shirt on, we’re going to the doctor’s,” they say, sliding off the bed and gathering up the plastic linings of the used gel strips to toss them into the trash bin. B rolls his eyes but snatches his shirt from the edge of the bed to put it on anyway. 

“I think I can sue you for mistreatment,” he says, “I’m already injured, and I’m a recovering burn victim.”

“Who said fuck it to an injured shoulder to get to his back,”  A says, “And good luck suing me when we’re both legally dead.”

“That’s never stopped either of us,” he says, and then turns to his phone. “I still want to file a complaint. Has Matt already reported to Wammy’s that A’s back, because I want to include how they’ve been treating me in that report.”

A laughs, brushing their hands on the shorts after discarding the last of the plastic linings. “Boy, I just saved your arse.”

“After I went to rescue yours. Ungrateful brat.”

A flips him off. “Narcissistic fucker.”

“And you said no thanks.”

They pause. “Okay, I wasn’t expecting that comeback, but it stands. You’re nasty.”

“You’re worse,” he says. On the dresser, his phone buzzes again, and he hears a click.

“MONIKA said you called for me?”

“Hey, Matt,” A greets.

“Hey, good to hear from you when you’re neither kidnapped nor getting shot at,” Matt says. “How are you?”

“I could do with a bit more sleep, but we don’t have a lot of time,” A says, “And I have to get B back to the hospital again.”

“What happened?”

“He might have made his injury worse.” 

“They kept trying to knock my lungs out of me.”

Both of them stare at each other as they’ve spoken at the same time.

“He tried to get gel strips on his back. He got hit in the arm last night, and before that, fired a gun wrong,” A says.

They both hear Matt wince. “Yikes.”

“It’s fine,” B says, “I think I got hurt worse with A slapping me and trying to break my neck.”

“You moved around too much first,” A says.

“You don’t deny the violence, then,” B says, and then motions to A like Matt can see them. He probably can if he’s hacked into the CCTV. “See? Where’s the electric shock for them? There’s never any punishment for them when they manhandle me even when their chip was still in their arm.”

A frowns slowly. “Excuse me, what?”

B looks them in the eye, very clearly repeating his words. “You heard me,” he says, slowly standing. He  still need painkillers for the day so his leg doesn’t hurt when he tries to walk around. “There was never any electric shock when there was still a chip in your arm.”

A says nothing at first. They just stare at him, their frown of confusion still on their face. B watches them as they process what he’s said, and then slowly let their expression melt into blankness. They brush past him and crouch down their bed to get their laptop there, opening it and tapping a few things out for a few minutes, keystrokes quick and practiced.

And then they stand, quickly setting the laptop aside to dash for the kitchen.

B runs after them, even with a slight hobble from the pain of moving his leg. It would take too much time to grab his crutch now so he can get to them without re-injuring himself. He reaches them just as they reach the knife block, and uses his injured arm to wrap around them to pin one of their arms to their side, while he snaps the good one out to grab A’s wrist just as they unsheath a knife from its slot.

A freezes as he holds them in place.

“Calm down,” he says, whispering. He doesn’t know what they’ve done that Matt hasn’t immediately started yelling when they ran for the kitchen. “What did you do?”

“Let me go.”

“What did you do, did you do anything to MONIKA?” he asks. He tries to keep his voice calm and soothing, taking note of how A’s nearly hyperventilating. “Matt didn’t start screaming when you got the knife.”

“I overrode her controls, she’ll be dead for a while,” A says, keeping their voice down along with him. “What the fuck do you mean there’s a chip in my arm?”

“You can override MONIKA’s controls?” If he can get their laptop maybe he can get a copy of whatever software they’ve cooked up in their spare time to incapacitate Matt’s AI. 

“What the fuck do you mean there’s a chip in my arm?” A asks.

“Put the knife down,” B says, “I need to check your arms first.”

A hesitates.

“A,” he says, “Put the knife down.”

Their hand is shaking as he says that, and slowly, they let their hold on the knife loose. B plucks it out of their grasp and tosses it to the island behind them. He nudges the knife block away. Slowly, he takes A’s hand and lets them stretch out their arm so he can check for scars. There’s a few thin lines here and there, but they’re faded. He frees their other arm to do the same, and finds as much as he’d found with the other. When he turns their arms over, all he sees is thin symmetrical lines by their wrists, near the crook of their elbows, and on the sides of their arm.

“None of these are recent, right?” he asks.

A shakes their head slowly. Their breathing isn’t getting any better and from this close, he feels their whole body shaking.

“Okay,” he says, loosening his hold on them, but still not letting their arms go in case they reach for the knife block again. “Okay. I think Matt’s lying.”

“What?”

“He told me there was a chip in my spine, but I thought that was bullshit,” he says, “He said it as a threat, that if I didn’t help find you but found a way to ditch MONIKA, they’d still be able to kill me with the chip in my spine. He said you had a similar tracker, but it might have fallen off or was cut out when you were kidnapped.  I don’t see any recent wounds on your arms.”

“If I had a tracker, they wouldn’t have needed you to find me,” A says, slowly letting their logic override their panic. “He just told you to make you help.”

“Yeah,” he says, “And it seems awfully convenient that your captors would have known you were bugged under your skin.”

“Yeah,” A says, nodding to themself. They’re not looking at him, their focus elsewhere even as they stare down at the kitchen tiles. “Yeah, and they didn’t cut me open, they just punched me around and drove me here.”

“You’re fine. You’re not bugged,” B says, “They don’t own you. You’re okay.”

A nods, a lot frantically this time. “I’m okay,” they say, sucking in a breath. “I’m okay.”

B catches them as they fully relax, knees nearly buckling as the dam of their panic breaks, mixing with relief and confusion. 

“MONIKA’s going to be online - ”

“A? B?”

“Shit,” B mutters.

“Where are you?”

A says nothing. Matt’s connection to the cameras is probably still processing if he’s asking where they are. 

“We’ll talk later,” B mouths, and A nods again. He lets them go, slowly. A few minutes later, they reach for the knife block to return it to its original place, and then walk over to the island to fetch the knife there.

“What the hell, A, put that thing down.”

Camera connection back online, then.

“It’s fine,” they say, sliding the knife back into its block. 

“What did you just do?”

“What did B mean there was a chip in my arm?” A asks.

Matt hesitates. B moves back to sit on the island, not wanting to worsen his leg. He tries to cross his arms and winces as he feels the full soreness of the injured one now that his focus isn’t elsewhere. 

“What was that about?”

“Nothing.”

“The truth, Matt. I gave you interference to ask B about it and he said you told him there was a chip in my arm but I have no recent wounds from it being taken out, if losing it was the reason why you had to turn to B to find me,” A says, “If there was really a tracker and yet you still enlisted B to help find me, then I don’t know what Wammy’s is playing at.”

They’re met with silence. A turns to lean on the sink and cross their arms, posture mimicking B’s, although he doesn’t think they’re doing it on purpose since they’re glaring at a camera in the corner of the room instead of looking at him.

“Well?”

When Matt still says nothing, B says, “I noticed there was a curious thing he said when I was on my way to Massachusetts.”

A turns to him.

“He said between the both of him and MONIKA, there was too much work to cover,” B says, “That could be nothing, but you’d think an operation backed by Wammy’s house would have manpower to spare.”

“Everyone was busy.”

“Helping L?” B asks. “How big of a team was it, Matt?”

A frowns. “I don’t share contacts with L.”

That’s news to B. He raises an eyebrow. 

“I don’t really work with the same people he does. I get in contact with the House and Mr. Wammy, but we don’t share agents. I have my own network,” they say. “They don’t really oversee any of my work until I get it done, and even then, it’s usually to review if I gave anything that could connect to Wammy’s. A lot of my cases are passed on to me, but there are some I pick myself, and for those cases, I’m usually given free reign. This was one of those cases.”

“I meant his network was looking for you, but another case came up.”

“Were they really, though?” B asks. “Are you on L’s network that you know this? I’d have thought you were on A’s.”

“He’s not,” A says.

“So he’s been working for Wammy’s the whole time?” B asks. He turns his attention back to the camera. “Then again, you did design MONIKA. Curious how that came to be.”

“I was already developing a project for artificial intelligence,” he says, “Evolving artificial intelligence.”

“And they put you in charge of monitoring the AI,” B says. “Don’t you have classes?”

“Merits.”

“But Mello and Near have no idea what’s actually going on,” B says, “But you do. Why you?”

“It was my project.”

“Could have had someone else monitor it, or replicate it,” he points out. “You’re still a student, after all. Why let you have the burden of looking after us - a detective and a murderer?”

A glances at him. He says nothing. They both know that while MONIKA was created to monitor him, they were part of the package. The house wasn’t just his fancy prison cell. It was both of theirs. As to why, he’s still yet to figure it out, but he’ll get there.

Matt is silent again.

A presses their lips to a thin line. “Tell me the truth.”

A pause. Then: “No, I’m not the one officially in charge of looking after you,” Matt says. “I’m...a student. And third place at that, and I don’t even get merits for side projects.”

B tries not to look smug. A keeps their attention on the camera as Matt continues.

“Not to be dismissive of your achievement of being able to create a fully functioning AI,” A says, smoothing over B’s bluntness. B just lifts his good shoulder in a shrug.

“No, I actually get it. We’re not - I know I’m not stupid. I also know it would be monumentally moronic to have a fourteen-year-old be in charge of looking after you two,” Matt says, “I’m smart, but so are you.” 

“Don’t - don’t feed his ego, he’ll start preening,” A says, and B just laughs. “So when you started e-mailing me…?”

“They asked for my project, actually, and I was proud of it, so of course I let them have a look at it. I never got it back,” Matt says, “But no matter how much I asked about what they were doing with it, they never told me. So I found it out myself, and the next thing I knew, MONIKA had all these fancy upgrades and she was the automated system assigned to look after you two.”

“How long have you two been talking?” B asks.

“A bit after we moved into the house,” A says. “I thought he was part of the team who was looking after us.”

“I wasn’t. I just checked in from time to time,” Matt says. “And then one day A just stopped answering all my e-mails, so I looked into it and all their contacts said no one has heard from them. I tried to - I’m shit at detective work, but I tried to piece things together.”

“The phone in Kline,” B says.

“Yeah. The phone in Kline,” Matt says, “I genuinely didn’t want to cause a mass panic with the police you were in contact with.”

“And you yourself couldn’t get out of the house,” A says, “So you turned to B.”

“I tried to see if Wammy’s was doing anything about your situation and they - I don’t think they were,” Matt says. 

A pauses, and then runs a hand over their face and sighs. “Does anyone know you’re contacting us?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve tried to double check every now and then that all the footage loops are natural and seamless, and I’ve tried not to be obvious with contacting you guys, but the downside of being in a house full of genii is that you’re suddenly average since genius is the norm,” Matt says, “I definitely made fuck-ups along the way.”

“Footage loops?”

“At your house.”

“And you lied to B because you - ” A frowns and waves a hand in a gesture, trying to convey something, and B laughs as he catches on.

“You couldn’t think of anything better to lie about, Matt?” B asks. “Deadly tracking chips?”

“Shut up, someone’s genuinely working on that right now,” Matt says.

“Well, thank you for contacting B, and thank you for your concern, as well as with trying to do damage control with the footage at the house.” A bites their lip as they think. “We need to get back fast,” they say, “Or at least, B does.”

“Really?” he asks.

“I’m supposed to be on the field. You’re not. Matt’s already covering for you.”

They’re right. And he knows they’re right, but now that the chaos has died down and everything’s alright, he can focus on what actually matters - getting the fuck out of here and getting his ankle monitor off. He hates Massachusetts just as much as he hates New York, but at least he’s been able to walk around in the past few days.

“And you’re continuing your job here?”

“There’s not a lot left to finish up.”

“Then there’s no problem if I tag along, do I?” he says, “Between the both of us, it would be faster.”

A fixes him a look. He doesn’t back down, meeting their eyes. 

“You really just want to stay out the house, don’t you?” A asks.

“That should be obvious,” he says, “I hate that stupid glass house.”

A just scoffs and shakes their head. He can’t tell if they’re amused or exasperated, with the dry laugh they’re giving him.

After a moment, they push themself off the sink and make their way back to the living room.

“Come on,” they say, “We still have to go to the hospital.”

-

The car ride to the hospital is silent, but not awkward. It’s more tired, B thinks, and mostly because of the exhaustion that A seems to radiate despite a full night’s sleep (due to painkillers) hours prior. They only talk in a hushed voice while on the phone with someone, probably to make sure their hospital visit goes well, and B doesn’t press them for conversation.

Their laptop. It had something that could disable MONIKA, maybe long enough for him to break his ankle monitor and book it, considering the AI had shut down long enough for both of them to talk. But then again, there was the factor of them not being in a house tailored to monitor them both, that meant that their only surveillance was MONIKA, and then Matt, who wasn’t even officially looking after them. If they were back at the house when he exploited the program, there might be a possibility that there were other countermeasures in place. He doesn’t think Wammy’s put it beyond him to attempt to hack into his babysitter AI.

But not A. They wouldn’t expect A.

At least Matt hadn’t. That was the only reason why that brief, mistimed, contained nuclear explosion of a reaction they had earlier worked, because he hadn’t expected A to suddenly do that.

Not that it’ll be unexpected from now on considering A has shown their cards, but no matter. It was only Matt who’s seen what’s happened, anyway, and if he’s really ass worried for A as he says he is, he’s not going to rat anything that’s happened in the past few days to Wammy’s.

So B can find a way around it. The first step was to get to that program and then get out of the house.

When he starts questioning exactly what then after, he forces himself to stop and shove those thoughts down. It wasn’t time for those. He had a window and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to take it. 

A hovers the whole time he’s being examined at the hospital. His shoulder has bruised from him pulling it earlier that morning, and the doctor makes him put his arm back in a sling and a stern warning, to which A gives him a smug look. He only rolls his eyes, exasperated, and thanks the doctor with something close to relief when he’s finally allowed to get out of the room.

“Don’t pull your arm again when you get back to the house,” A says, “God knows you’re gonna try to.”

“My arm is fine,” he says, carefully maneuvering his crutch for his leg (although yay, painkillers, finally) so he doesn’t stagger into a wall. “And I’m not going back to the house.”

“I know you hate it, but you know how this goes,” A says, “You’re not even supposed to be out here.”

“Is that gratefulness I hear?”

A stops walking and sighs, closing their eyes and pinching the bridge of their nose.

“Look,” they say, huffing out a breath. It’s probably not the best time to press them like this when they’ve had a hell of a morning, but the house is dull and is going to feel even more of a prison when he goes back to it now when he’s tried walking around again, for the first time in nearly more than a year. 

“Thank you. I mean this when I say thank you, because I did think I was on my own when I...got in trouble. Thank you for looking for me when you didn’t need to, and thank you for saving me,” they say, “But the more you’re out here, the more they’re going to question whether or not it’s a good idea to be keeping you around, when they get word of this.”

“Do they care?” he asks, shifting his weight back so he’s not putting too much strain on his injured thigh. “I wasn’t under the impression that they did.”

“I don’t know,” A says, “That’s the thing. I don’t know. I never do. And this isn’t a conversation we should be having in a hospital, of all places - ”

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t go avoiding the subject.” B grabs their arm when they start to walk away. “You’re just going to get me a ticket and fly me back as soon as we get back to the hotel, so no, this is the perfect place to be having this conversation.”

A’s jaw tenses. “B.”

“You know as much as I do if we get back to that hotel, I’m not going to be able to say anything to you to change your mind,” he says, “So you can go and I can stay here, or we can have a conversation like actual adults. Your choice.”

“MONIKA can just take care of the situation,” they say, lowly, glancing at the covered ankle monitor. 

“Are you going to let her?”

A doesn’t answer, instead turning their attention elsewhere. He doesn’t let their arm go.

After a minute, they sigh and pull their arm back sharply, shrugging off his hold.

“Fine,” they say, moving to lean back on the wall opposite to him. If they’re quiet enough, maybe everyone else in the hallway won’t hear them, although B doubts anyone would be eavesdropping on a conversation between two people who are clearly radiating animosity. “What do you want me to do, drag you around like a fucking pet?”

“Don’t be degrading,” he says, “You said you only had a bit more to wrap up with your work, why not just let me help you and save time?”

A crosses their arms, defensive. “They might check.”

“Is that a certainty or just paranoia?”

“Better paranoid than dead,” A grits out. “I had to bargain and jump through so many hoops for you to even have a proper room back at the house, and much more to give you work to do - this isn’t something they’re going to easily let slide if they find out.”

“Who’s in charge of this whole thing?” he asks.

A doesn’t answer.

“A?”

“I am,” they say, “I’m the one who said I was going to look after you, because the house couldn’t be bothered. But they couldn’t have you running around giving away information either - ”

Of course. That was the only reason L even actually bothered with his case, after all.

“ - and you don’t have the best legal track record, so you have to be supervised. Someone checks in every now and then.”

“Who does?”

A waves a hand. “Sometimes it’s Roger, sometimes it’s someone else. A few times I’ve heard from Mr. Wammy.”

“How thoroughly do they check?”

“Very thoroughly,” A says, “And I’m in charge of this, but they’re still the ones who’re actually making it possible that you’re not behind bars right now.”

“Sure, they just stuck me in one that looks fancier,” he says.

“At least you’re alive,” A says.

“Ever thought I don’t want to be?”

He doesn’t look away from them as he says that. A just looks down and mumbles something, too soft for him to catch. 

“The problem is that if they check and they see I’ve been way more lenient than I should be, they might pull the plug on this because it might not be worth it,” they say.

“And you don’t want them to.”

A snorts. “Why would I when I’ve already done this much.”

He studies them for a moment, their hunched posture, and the way they’re curling in on themself. If he pressures them more right now, they’re going to stop answering. 

This really was a bad time to talk about this. Oh, well.

“Alright,” he says, clicking his tongue. “If they find out, then we tell them the truth.”

A blinks in surprise. “What?”

“Matt said he’s doctoring the footage to make sure it looks like I’m just in the house, and the kid is capable, but there’s only so much that can be done with pre-recorded footage. In that regard, your paranoia is justified,” he says, “On the account that they do find out what’s happened, then we tell them the truth. You were missing, he was desperate, I thought to look for my best friend.”

A stiffens at that. 

“We’re not friends,” they say, “Not really. Not anymore.”

“Who cares,” he says, “They’ll buy that bullshit with our history.”

“So, what, we appeal to their empathy?” 

“That’s the most useful thing around,” he says, “This the set-up: two friends separated by death and tragedy finally reunite after three years. One of them goes missing again, leaving the other behind just like what happened the first time they were separated, except this time, the other can do something about it. Their relationship is strained, but deep down they’re still best friends. People love that shit.”

A laughs. They run a hand over their face and sigh. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“It won’t be too hard to pull off,” he says, shrugging, “We just have to act like we like each other.”

“If I have to look at you for five more seconds, I’m going to maul your face,” A says, “How on earth are we going to do that?”

“We bullshit like we always do,” he says.

They lean their head back on the wall, looking up at the ceiling. “I hate this.”

“It’s the best play we have, just in case. Slightly-tweaked honesty is the best weapon,” he says.

“Okay,” A says, “We have an explanation for you getting out of the house, and for Matt letting you out of the house. What about for you having an extended vacation?”

B moves his sling a bit. “I have gel pads to put on and I can’t do it myself. You’re too nice to let me get re-injured every day.”

“Oh my god.” A puts their face in their hands. “Oh my god.”

“It ties in with our other excuse. You can finish your case faster, I’m out of the house for a few more days. Win-win.”

“You really hate the house, huh?” A looks up from their hands, resigned. Got them.

He smiles. “You have no idea.”