#Summer programs for it engineer

[meadow-dot-7z]

We made a small game project!! It's a program designed to learn how to play Connect 4, based on the MENACE model. Its algorithm needs some work, so it's a very slow learner, but we're pretty proud of it so far! ^^

[free-luigi-mangione]

which of y'all had Luigi's linkedin screenshotted on your blogs???

[moreaujeans]

another 30% bc he insists that we focus hard on content that doesn’t appear at all and only gives three fucking problems that instead cover completely unrelated topics and doesn’t bother with partial credit and when you go to him for help outside of exams he tells you you just need to read the book properly 😍 i love it here SO much

[michaelgabrill]

NASA Offers Free High School Engineering Program This Summer

NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is launching the NASA Glenn High School Engineering Institute this summer. The free, work-based learning experience is designed to help high school students prepare for a future in the aerospace workforce. Rising high school juniors and seniors in Northeast Ohio can submit applications for this new, in-person summer program […] from NASA https://ift.tt/FlOKWPR

[eccentricstylist]

The Four Seasons as Animated Fractals

[fazedlight]

Shadow (post-canon fluff)

“So what can we expect from tomorrow’s gala?” the newscaster asked.

Lena smiled, stopping herself from shifting nervously in the bright lights above her, glancing instead to the news studio’s camera as she spoke. “The gala is a black-tie fundraiser event for the Lena Luthor Foundation’s first project - an outreach program aimed at teaching STEM concepts to inner city children.”

“Fascinating,” the newscaster said, “And how will this education program work?”

“The children will be taught basic computer science concepts, and also have access to learn to code robots to compete in an obstacle course competition,” Lena said, eyes shifting back to the newscaster as she spoke, attempting to look as conversational and relaxed as possible. God, it’s been a while since I’ve done this, she thought to herself. “By giving the children real-world instruction, we hope they will be excited to see what one can really do with engineering and science.”

“And will your new girlfriend be attending the gala?”

As much as Lena had no problem staying composed, she could never quite master keeping the blush out of her cheeks. Not when it came to Kara. “She will be attending as well,” Lena confirmed, “Kara is a strong believer in a science education, having grown up with a strong tradition of scientific exploration on Krypton.”

“I imagine she’s an exception to the black tie rules,” the newscaster said.

“Of course,” Lena grinned, “We think the city is ready to know the real Supergirl.”

“Do you think your brother would be proud?”

The smile stuck to Lena’s face - no one but her closest friends would know that anything was amiss from her expression. But the question was certainly charged. While Earth Prime Lex had been known as a philanthropist, his quest for power had come out during the trial - somehow lauded by the public - only for him to attack the world and disappear into the phantom zone, leaving a confused public behind.

I guess I’ll never really escape him, Lena thought tiredly. In Stryker’s or dead or stuck in the phantom zone - none of it mattered. It seemed that Lex would always linger over her. “My brother’s legacy is complex,” Lena said, somewhat frustrated that she couldn’t be more direct on Earth Prime about who her brother really was. “I hope to honor the Luthor name, whatever that would’ve meant to him.” “Well, some very lucky children are about to have a fantastic summer,” the newscaster said back. “Thank you for joining us today, Lena.” “It was a pleasure,” Lena said.

---

Lying in the cool darkness of her bedroom - the setting sun hardly penetrating the windows anymore - Lena dozed quietly, relieved that the day was done.

Light footsteps padded down the hallway, causing a warm feeling in Lena’s chest. Kara’s home, she thought, and she was greeted only moments later by the kryptonian slipping into bed beside her, hugging around her back. “There’s Belly Burger in the kitchen,” Kara murmured, nuzzling softly into Lena’s hair. 

“Thank you,” Lena said back, “I needed that.”

“Rough day?”

“Not particularly. Just… him.”

Lena could feel Kara’s head on the pillow behind her, the kryptonian holding her quietly, giving Lena the space to think. “I think it’s more exhausting here,” Lena said eventually, “Lex, on this Earth.”

“Because they think he was a hero?”

“They don’t understand how someone who could work so closely with you,” Lena said, slowly rolling over on the bed to look at Kara directly, “Could turn around and try to kill you. At least on Earth 38, his first response to Superman was to build a kryptonite suit. People knew where things stood. I didn’t have to dance around.”

Kara hugged Lena more tightly. “I’m sorry, Lena,” she said.

Lena sighed, planting a small kiss on Kara’s lips. “I’ll be fine. I just wish I could get away from it sometimes.”

Kara’s brow furrowed thoughtfully, as she reached up to caress Lena’s face. Lena could almost see the thoughts dance behind her eyes, before she smiled softly. “What is it?” Lena asked.

“I…” Kara trailed off for a moment. “I was wondering, if you would like to visit Argo soon? Maybe after the gala? They’ve barely heard of Lex up there.”

Lena’s eyes shifted between Kara’s, small relief flowing through her body. “That sounds perfect.”

---

“Why do you think your brother started hating aliens?”

“Ms. Danv- er, Supergirl- what does Cat Grant think of ethics in journalism?”

“Your brother was a great man - what do you think caused him to snap?”

Lena sighed in relief as the dancing began, happy to have an excuse to lead Kara to the dance floor instead of continuing conversation with the various donors and reporters roaming about. At least the flashing cameras were less intrusive.

Kara, for her part, seemed almost curious at the extra attention. “This’ll take some getting used to,” she murmured playfully, lightly twirling Lena in her arms and setting off another flurry of photo flashes.

“They’ll calm down eventually,” Lena said, “There are only so many Super and a Luthor headlines that people will read.”

“Ready for our trip tomorrow?” Kara asked.

“More than ready.”

---

Alura hugged her warmly when they arrived. “It’s nice to get away,” Lena said, following Alura and Kara from J’onn’s ship to the El home.

She was somewhat disbelieving that she was really sitting in a kryptonian kitchen, on the remnants of an alien planet. With Zor-El off on an overnight deployment to oversee routine maintenance to Argo’s shield, the three of them spent Lena’s first night on Argo sipping on hot chocolate that Kara had brought from Earth. 

Lena found Alura was easy to open up to. “It’s just tiring, being in Lex’s shadow,” Lena said. “For once I wish I could be seen on my own terms.”

Lena thought she noticed Alura glance to Kara, but the thought didn’t linger as Alura looked back to Lena again. “Kara and Kal have told me of the feud,” she said sympathetically.

“It’ll be nice getting away from his name for a while,” Lena confessed. “I can just be Lena, instead of Lex’s little sister.”

“We’ll be going to the markets tomorrow,” Kara said, glancing from Lena to Alura. “I want to show Lena the town square.”

“I’m sure she’ll like it,” Alura said, exchanging what Lena was certain was a look with Kara. What’s that about?, she wondered, but Alura quickly moved on. “Is it strange not being a super here?” Alura asked Kara.

Kara smiled. “I’m home again.”

Lena took in Kara’s expression, the ease in her body. They talked about it from time to time - what it meant for Kara to have powers she constantly needed to control. Though she didn’t need to balance two identities anymore, there would always be the physical fatigue of controlling her powers on Earth.

Lena smiled. At least they’d have Argo as a refuge - where Lena wasn’t defined as Lex’s little sister, and Kara wasn’t defined by being a super.

---

Kara seemed oddly nervous that morning as they dressed. Lena was excited - to understand a little more of Kara’s home, to see a new culture - but she couldn’t quite understand her girlfriend’s nerves. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy it,” Lena said curiously. “You don’t need to worry.”

Kara smiled back, reaching out to take Lena’s hand as they exited her parents’ home. The markets took place twice a week, in the large central park that now served as Argo’s main gathering place. But it seemed Kara wasn’t going directly to the center of the large field, instead detouring to the east. “Where are we going?” Lena asked.

“I want to show you Argo’s heroes first.”

Lena tilted her head curiously, following the kryptonian. The expanse around the city was laid out in a series of ringed parks, and they rotated clockwise along the various paths, Kara pointing out different statues that honored the important historical figures of Krypton.

As they passed a playground, heading beyond the fourth ring of trees, Lena found herself looking at another statue ahead, with another bright and cheery view of the city’s skyscrapers in the background.

But what caught Lena’s eye this time as they approached the statue wasn’t the beautiful sights, but instead the familiar face staring back at her - proud and noble, holding glowing purple stone. What is this?, Lena thought.

They approached the statue - a small smile crossing Kara’s lips - and Lena’s eyes darted around it, eventually reading the plaque spelling her own name, with a string of kryptonian beneath. Lena could feel the blush crawling up her cheeks at her own confusion, her heart racing in disbelief. “Me?” Lena said softly. “They think I’m a hero?”

“You gave Argo the harun-el,” Kara said. “Every year, the Luthor Festival celebrates the day my mother returned with the recipe.”

The Luthor festival is about me, Lena thought, placing a hand at the base of the statue, realizing that tears were starting to threaten her vision. But she didn’t care. This… this is about me. What I did.

Kara smiled, squeezing Lena’s other hand, seeming to read her thoughts. “You saved all of them, Lena,” Kara said, as Lena’s heart raced, “To my people, the Luthor name is defined by you.”

Lena smiled widely, tears still threatening to spill as she turned into a waiting Kara’s arms, who squeezed her tightly. Lena’s arms wrapped around Kara in return, as she let out a choked laugh, placing her head on Kara’s shoulder as she melted into her. “Thank you for showing me this,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

---------------------------------

This headcanon was first mentioned in Echoes of the Forest, but I felt I wanted to write a ficlet for it. Please also check out this beautiful art I commissioned from @heeeygracie!

[theglamorousferal]

Tony keeps in touch with Harley post IM3.

Tony hacks into Harley's school to see what his grades are and it not clocking that he could literally just ask about it.

Tony keeping up with the Keener’s via twice monthly phone calls that turn into weekly ones that turn into Tony and Mrs. Keener texting back and forth.

Tony invites the kid to visit during a school break where they both just tinker with things. Harley is nervous at first until they meet up again and they start snarking back and forth.

At least one minor fire or explosion happens. If asked, neither know what started it. (Tony was wiring a gauntlet and Harley jokingly called him Dad when Tony told him he had to do his homework.)

The Keener’s visit for a week in the summertime, Tony has bought the lake house earlier to have a place away from people. Mrs. Keener and Pepper get along pretty well and both the kids like Pepper, so Tony counts it as a win.

Tony offers to pay for Harley and his sister's education and Mrs. Keener took him up on it because there was no way she’d be able to afford to send both her kids to college unless one of them got a free ride and Tony shows he cares by spending money and making sure those he cares about are safe and comfortable.

Harley spends the summer before his freshman year of high school with Tony. Tony finds a used classic car and they spend the summer rebuilding it and upgrading the engine to run clean.

Tony finds Spider-Man and finds out he’s a year older than Harley. Tony panics because here’s another kid genius but this one's in way over his head and will stay in over his head regardless of if he has support or proper equipment. Tony decides that no one else is gonna help this kid and give him as much protection as he could if he built him a suit, so he does just that.

Tony finds out about Midtown through Peter and approaches Mrs. Keener with an opportunity for Harley. (It's a genius school and it's practically a feeder to MIT, it'll be great.) Harley moves into the tower that Tony has kept here because he has reason to stay in the city.

Tony is a lot better at dealing with a kid because he's been hanging out with Harley so long, so he invites Peter over to meet Harley and have lab time. 

Harley just quips “so you’re my replacement?” to Peter and Peter immediately panicking and stuttering over himself while Harley howls with laughter.

Harley helps Peter learn to be more comfortable around Tony by roasting Tony for twenty straight minutes and after a month of lab days enlists Peter's help in making a program for FRIDAY to blast Barbie Girl when Tony has spent 24 hours or more in the lab.

Peter asks Harley to hang out with Ned outside of lab days. The three of them end up building a LEGO Deathstar and have drawn up the plans to be able to make it hover the next lab day.

Peter and Harley become thick as thieves and get to the point of that weird twin telepathy especially when it comes to being sassy.

One school break the three of them didn't go outside for the first four days, just spending most of the time in the lab so Pepper comes in and orders them to go outside for once my god Tony. Take them to your favorite burger place, I don't care, just be outside.

This leads to the three of them getting Pap'd. ("Yeah, I was out to lunch with my two interns, what's the matter with that?" is the quote above a picture of him laughing as the two boys pretend their straw wrappers are mustaches.)

This leads Tony to realize that he hadn't actually gotten the boys registered as his interns and remedies this immediately. (with backpay into a trust for each of them(Harley already gets an allowance, Tony has no idea how much is the proper amount to give to a 14 year old, and so usually gives him a few of whatever bills are in his wallet.))

Tony decides that now that they're officially employees of SI, that means they get to check out the place and so brings them down to R&D where everybody is immediately charmed by Peter and amused by Harley. The boys end up talking to the interns on the floor while Tony discusses the latest StarkPad.

One lab day both Harley and Peter look exhausted but Peter still showed up for lab time so they make their way there. Tony takes one look at them and asks FRIDAY to scan them, they both have fevers and he herds them into his living room.

Tony orders all the cold remedies he can think of to be brought up to the penthouse. Tony instructs the boys to pick a movie while he gathers blankets and dumps them on the boys.

Tony frantically texting Harley's mom and May asking them what he should do I've never taken care of a sick kid before, there are two of them, what do I do??

May asks Tony if Peter can stay the night because she's working a double that she can't get out of. He says yes if she can tell him what to do for sick kids because Harley's mom hasn't been able to respond.

Tony ends up joining the boys on the couch after forcing each of them to take cold medicine and thrusting a bowl of chicken noodle soup into each of their hands. Tony's in between the boys.

Over the course of WALL-E each boy begins to sag eventually trapping Tony on the couch. He's got one drooling in his shoulder and another drooling on his thigh. He asks FRIDAY to take several pictures before going back to his work on his StarkPad.

This starts Peter staying over whenever May is working night shifts. Then staying over every other weekend. Then Tony invites May and Peter to go on vacation to the lake house for a few days in the summer.

The Keener family is also present and May, Pepper and Mrs. Keener get on like a house on fire. Peter loves playing with Abbie with Harley. Three group chats are made that day. The adults in a co-parenting chat, the ladies in an exasperated with our geniuses chat and the kids in a sass and meme chat.

Just, Tony becomes a dad to two brilliant boys (and maybe one of the boy's baby sisters too depending how you want to write her).

[poisoned-fruit-prose]

𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞 • 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢: 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭-𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬

synop: you have landed a spot in the university of piltover's prestigious graduate program. you meet two men who will change your paradigm on love forever. a figure, unfamiliar to you now, waits patiently for this to happen.

wc: 3.7k.

includes: modern au. lots of setup for the upcoming chapters. jayce is a big puppy and viktor is a perpetually annoyed cat. no magic—yet.

author's note: happy new year everyone! my gift to you all is a series i've been festering with for the past few weeks. i'd like to get a new chapter out every other week, maybe sooner if my schedule allows. i hope you all enjoy.

masterlist • chapter ii (coming soon) ⇀

Life had taken a delightful turn for the better.

The past few years had been endlessly exhausting. You had your sights set on grad school—an English PhD, no less. You had toiled with the idea long enough before finally deciding to pull the trigger and the splatter of work that came with the shot was nothing to shake a stick at. There were exams to be taken, papers to be written, letters of recommendation to be awkwardly asked. And you had to pay for it somehow on top of it all—shifts at the little mom and pop diner by your apartment were punctuated with exam study books and a crumpled bit of paper with your expenses tallied tip by tip.

You managed to get into one of the top schools in the country: the University of Piltover. You would say you didn’t know how, but you did. You worked hard and it paid off. You landed a teaching fellowship, securing a huge majority of your tuition, and a roommate in one of the campus apartments offered to you. You were dreaming of orange autumns wrapped in a scarf on cobblestone campus walkways, faded sunlight filtering through stained glass library windows, creaky wooden chairs circling ancient lyceums.

It was all laid out before you now. Things were going to be perfect from here on out.

You arrived at your new living space in mid-August, a few weeks before classes started, your rickety car absolutely packed with your precious belongings. Your breaks creaked as you pulled into the driveway outside the little townhouse. The siding was painted a handsome cream to pair with the brick foundation and the ivy that climbed up the sides and front and choked the huge bay windows. A maple tree, verdant in the summer light, sat old and happy and fat in the front yard.

You could hardly kill your engine fast enough. You virtually skipped up to the front door, unlocked it, took a deep breath of your new home base as you stepped in. It was hard to not contain the joyous ichor that dripped from the fruits of your labor. You laughed, did a little dance, oblivious to the far nicer car that was tucking itself beside yours or the very tall, very handsome man that was scaling up the porch steps and through the door—

“Oh, hello,” a timbre voice said bemusedly as it stumbled upon your victory dance in the foyer. You froze, blood rushing up your neck to settle in a nice, tomato red glow on your cheeks and ears as you tried not to gape at this Greek god of man in horror.

“...Oh god. Hi.”

“No, please don’t be embarrassed, I’m the one that stepped in on your celebration,” he said warmly as he stepped forward and offered a huge hand to shake. “Plus, I just really don’t want start off on the wrong foot. I’m Jayce.”

Ah. So this was he. You had been emailing him sporadically, of course, but it was really the university that matched you up. You knew he was an architecture major and... not much else. Neither of you even had profile pictures attached to your school emails, so you had no clue that your roommate was going to be a tall, dark, handsome Superman.

You extended your own hand and shook it as firmly as you could, what with your knees suddenly feeling like a poor attempt at gelatin and the afternoon light haloing his perfect hair a little too brightly.

“I thought you’d be coming a little closer to the start of classes,” you said with a bashful laugh.

“That was the plan, but I have some furniture being shipped that’s coming over the next few days. Plus, y’know, I wanted to… make a good impression, I guess.”

“...On me?” you asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah! We’re gonna be rooming together for at least the rest of the year, if not through our degrees.” He smiled warmly. “I’d like if we at least tolerated each other.”

“...And you figured you’d do that by... getting here early?” you teased.

Jayce’s jaw went slack as he struggled with words for a moment. “Well I—Well, I was gonna buy my textbooks and have them all stacked up on the counter so you’d see what I was taking and how sm—y’know what, never mind.”

You were already laughing and he was already laughing, and the horror of dancing like nobody was watching when, indeed, someone was watching was already fading.

“Consider a good impression made, Jayce. No need to do all that.”

You could virtually see an invisible tail start wagging, a pair of floppy ears perking up at your words. You almost wanted to reach out and pet the faultless mop of hair on his head.

“Well, I still want to live up to that good impression! You just got here, right? I mean, I can still see the boxes strapped to the top of your car. Let me help you unpack!” he immediately offered.

“No, you just got here too, that’s really not necessary—” But he was already bounding out the door before you could say no. Not that you were going to run after him and adamantly refuse—some of those boxes were more than difficult just to lift into your car. But you found yourself at his heels anyway, insisting that he take his own stuff in first.

“No, really, it’s okay! It’s just my clothes and some of my weights. Holy shit, you packed a lotta stuff in this tiny thing!”

“That’s what she said,” you immediately shot back. Jayce just lit up.

“That is what she said! And here I was, all worried we wouldn’t get along!”

You popped open the trunk and you began your work. Jayce, naturally, made it look like child’s play with the way he stacked boxes to carry two, three at a time without breaking a sweat. You were content with carrying just the one. Until that one particularly difficult box—filled to the brim with books that wouldn’t fit anywhere else—stared up at you, innocently, from the back of your car.

You didn’t want to look like a wuss, or to even ask your roommate for more help than he had already so graciously offered. So you took a deep breath, got a good grip on the sides, lifted, and immediately began to fall backwards.

“Woah, careful there!”

Your back met the soft cushion of Jayce’s chest. Two huge arms came out to catch you as well, wrapping around your shoulders as he bore your weight and helped you regain your balance. Up this close, you caught a whiff of bergamot and spices—a delicious-smelling cologne he had draped himself in. Of fucking course he wears really nice cologne.

“Here, let me.”

His hand slid to rest on your back to ensure you’d stay upright as he rounded you, only leaving your body to bear the brunt of the box. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, and you could feel another rush of blood flushing your face.

“God, thanks. I dunno what I’d do if you weren’t here.”

“Eat asphalt?” he replied cheekily, to which you threw him a playful glare and pushed him onwards to the house.

“Shut up! You’re taking that to your grave!”

“Am I taking the dancing too?”

“Shut up!”

You followed Jayce, sheepish and endeared, as he laughed warmly at your apparent embarrassment.

“Aw c’mon, you’ll be laughing with me about all this by the time we move out!”

You’ve barely known the guy for five minutes, but the thought of going through all of grad school living with him and suddenly moving away made your heart twist sadly. He seemed like a good guy, someone you were actually excited to get to know, someone you’d be happy to spend these upcoming years with. Preemptive grief was a bitch.

“Whatever,” you managed to grumble out, lightheartedly enough for him to not catch onto your overly-sentimental train of thought.

With all your boxes at least inside the house, the two of you looked over the pile that sat patiently at the bottom of the stairs. Your bedroom, of course, was up the flight.

You looked at him wearily. He looked back and smiled.

“Lunch?” he asked.

“Lunch,” you agreed.

Jayce turned out to be a wonderful companion to spend the weeks leading up to classes with. You learned he came from a known engineering family but was here on the word of one of the school board’s council members: Cassandra Kiramman. The name made you raise your eyebrows, but he insisted it was really her daughter, Caitlyn, that made the relationship worth mentioning. He was childhood friends with her and that fact certainly didn’t make jealousy stab green through your chest.

Nonetheless, you and Jayce spent the upcoming days prepping for rigorous mental work. Mostly. There was plenty of studying completed, but you quickly learned Jayce was the type of guy to drag you off as soon as something more interesting made itself known. Movies that you just had to watch, groceries you just had to get right this very second, parties you just had to join—hell, you even met Caitlyn on one of his whims. (You had nothing to worry about between her and Jayce. By the time you were dragging him from the party, she was snogging the face off some girl with a terrible pink undercut.)

It felt weirdly strange leaving the apartment without him. It was your first day of classes and this was always how it played out in your head; but Jayce had a way of tunneling into your consciousness and making you feel as if he had always been there, waking you up with the extra eggs he “accidentally” cooked before he peeled off for the gym, hooking his finger over the top of your phone when he wanted your attention, already recommending books to you left and right.

You chewed on the inside of your cheek as you tried not to smile. It was all a little obvious, right? He hadn’t mentioned a partner or romantic relationship of any kind and he was being otherwise… overtly boyfriend-ish. It certainly felt like he was courting you.

Your mind wouldn’t allow you the happiness of that for too long. He was probably just super friendly. You saw the way he looked at other girls, treated them just like you—like they were his entire world and there was nothing else he’d rather be doing. That was just it. He was exceedingly kind—to everyone. You weren’t special. Certainly not to someone you only knew for a handful of weeks. It was best to keep your hopes and imagination in check before getting stung. A guy like him was a perfect catch.

You? You subconsciously pulled your finger away from your mouth, refusing to acknowledge the nail you were biting. Or the chipped nail polish you hadn’t bothered to reapply since arriving at your apartment.

You spent the rest of your walk to class consuming yourself with more pleasant thoughts: how nice your room was shaping up, all the new supplies you had splurged on to make studying a little more appetizing, all the new people with similar passions you’d connect with. Your life retook the rose-tinted film again. You were living your dream.

You reached the English building with plenty of time to spare. It was a beautiful sight, inside and out; tall, gleaming windows, masterful stonework, gilded details that shone proudly in the morning sun. You counted your lucky stars ten times over as you opened the main doors and filed in with the other early birds. The interior managed to feel more like a palace than a place of study with the absurdly high ceilings and grand arches, but there were still plenty of nooks where students had taken up reading and crannies where other students were gossiping. You narrowly avoided stepping on a piece of gum.

Ah, a whiff of normalcy in this foreign land of rich kids and rich land. Jayce was wonderful and all, but people born with a silver spoon in their mouth always had a way of being… off-putting to you. They always seemed just a little too nonchalant about life.

You continued on, looking at the map you printed just to make sure you were going the right way. You already knew, from having taken the route preemptively, but it felt good to visualize the arrow you had drawn guiding you along like those little quest helpers in MMOs. You smiled to yourself at the thought and continued until you made it to a set of huge doors leading to the largest lecture hall in the building.

Your first class was with Dr. Heimerdinger, a well-known professor more in physics and engineering than in your side of academia; but he was also well-versed in philosophy and ethics, which was what you were taking to ease yourself into the heavy course load of grad school. There were at least a hundred other students who were doing the same thing, of course, but a much larger portion of them were just genuine fans of Heimerdinger’s work. He had published a great many books that took high-concept math and physics and digested them for the layman, making him not only a spokesperson to the general public for wilder scientific concepts but a beloved figure to those who wished they could take a similar place in society. He was intelligent, charismatic, and flippantly folksy. What wasn’t there to love?

You appreciated his books on the level of language they used, but not much past it. You were here for linguistics, literature; to you, these contained the realm of math—for what would math be if one didn’t have the language to express it?—and were therefore more worthwhile expenditures. Heimerdinger had a few fun interviews that you had enjoyed, but that didn’t push you into the realm of awe when you saw him, also early, when you stepped into the hall.

What did catch your eye was the dark-haired man speaking with him. He was far taller—though, in the case of Heimerdinger, that wasn’t a difficult feat—and leaned casually on a cane; but when his amber eyes caught yours, you couldn’t help the trill of excitement that flashed through your stomach. He was smartly dressed and exceedingly handsome. He had an air of someone who knew he belonged there. All of this expounded the fluttering in your stomach, the blush that rose to your cheeks, the way you scuttled past the desk towards a chair near the front of the hall.

There were a few others who were now dotting the Colosseum-style seats, but you felt the man’s gaze follow you and settle as you did. You met them again, to feel that flash of attraction. You weren’t sure it was mutual, but his hooded eyes lingered on you before returning to your professor.

Now that was a man that could distract you from Jayce. A crush was just about the only thing potent enough to distract from, well, another crush. While one was virtually demanding your attention like a golden retriever puppy, it was equally as fun to burn slowly.

Students began to pour in as the class’ beginning time drew near. You had long set up your laptop and notebook, neatly assigned the date at the top of your paper, had the day-one presentation pulled up on your screen; you were now preoccupied with a worn paperback that had survived both your high school and college years. It brought a comforting slice of familiarity when you needed it most.

But you were mostly just using it to stop yourself from looking at the handsome stranger still chatting with Heimerdinger. His hair defied the laws of physics. In fact, it was making you a little jealous; just how the hell did he get perfect, beachy waves like that?

“Good morning everyone!”

Heimerdinger’s pleasantly squeaky voice earned the immediate, rapt attention of the entire hall. You supposed that was precisely the measure of someone’s power—just how quickly they could command a room.

“I’m so very glad you could all make it! We’ll start class in a few minutes. Make sure you have a notebook and your brains at the ready! Joining us today is my assistant, Viktor. He’s not my TA, so don’t address him as such—he will be contributing to future lectures just as much as I.”

Viktor.

The name immediately stuck in your memory. You gazed over to him, just as you were sure hundreds of other eyes did; but that amber gaze was only returned to you. He held it, just for a moment, before the professor was speaking again and had regained control of everyone’s attention.

You knew day-one classes were going to be a breeze and Heimerdinger was thankfully no exception. He went over the syllabus, his expectations, how this class was situated in the overarching graduate program, and his long, long list of philosophy books that were “recommended” (but totally implied to be mandatory so as to not be the object of his academic ire).

Class otherwise went off with a hitch, though something—other than the man grading papers quietly at the furthest end of the lecture hall—caught your attention. A quote, misworded and misattributed, soiled a slide on Heimerdinger’s presentation. You scribbled it down in your notebook. You doubted you’d have the guts to talk to a master like your professor himself, but…

You mentally smiled like the fucking Grinch.

Class wrapped up, and you virtually skipped down the steps to the front of the hall. While a large flock of freshmen surrounded Heimerdinger, asking for autographs or gushing praise, you were the only one to break off for his assistant. He was already rising from his seat, but he stopped in his tracks when he realized you were beelining towards him, fully intent on starting a conversation.

“Yes?” he asked, voice low and thick with an accent you couldn’t quite place.

“Viktor, right?”

“That’s correct. Who am I speaking to, exactly?”

You babbled your name as you side-eyed your professor, hardly distinguishable from the crowd of awed students. “But that’s really not important. I, uh… I think I caught a mistake in Dr. Heimerdinger’s presentation.”

Viktor’s eyebrows raised dramatically. “A mistake? On day one? You must be very confident to make a claim like that.”

“I am,” you insisted. You opened your bag, fumbled through it to break your notebook free.

“Then speak with Heimerdinger.”

You gaped for a moment, enough for him to start headway towards the exit without so much as a wave goodbye.

“I—Well, hold on!” you gasped, catching up with him as you flipped to the page where you wrote your note. “There’s a reason I came to you. First of all, he has more fangirls than a boy band.”

Viktor let out a quiet chuckle. He wasn’t convinced you were much more than a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed first-year grad student that was attempting to use him to get to his boss. But your comment was funny, he’d give you that.

With his cold exterior melted, just enough to give you confidence, you continued.

“Secondly, I like corroboration. What would academia be if people published journals with zero peer review or references? Little more than fairy tale.” You gestured loosely. “A nice thought, but nothing to hold it down in reality. It also means that the experienced are subject to the same rules as the inexperienced. Basic quote credentials included.”

Viktor adjusted the black frames on his nose, as if he was actually seeing you for the first time. He leaned heavily on his cane as you both stopped before the exit. You assumed he was thinking of something to say until he, with apparent annoyance, tapped the door with his cane.

“Oh shit!” you gasped, pushing the heavy thing open for him as you began to blush. “I’m so sorry!”

When he passed by you, his indignation had warmed to a sort of mischievous smile.

“What was that about being inexperienced?” he teased.

“I—Well, to be totally fair, I was trying to have a conversation! Y’know, a thing that usually happens when two people talk?” You crossed your arms, embarrassed. “I wasn’t really paying attention to walking.”

“I can’t really say the same,” he replied, looking down at his cane. The casualness of his comment caught you off-guard, but it was only a moment before you both shared a laugh.

“See? Nothing to get so flustered about,” Viktor virtually purred at you. You swear it was just his accent, but no amount of justification or explanation was going to make that flash of attraction stop pulsing through you. “I apologize for leaving you hanging. I do believe we share a similar point of view—after all, Heimerdinger hired me as his assistant for a reason.”

You looked at him, a little befuddled. “Just to catch his mistakes?”

“Ehh…” He tilted his head side to side as he searched for words. “That makes him sound bad, and me sound rather useless. We catch each other’s mistakes, no? Peer review, as you said yourself.”

“Why be his assistant then, if you’re on the same level?”

“Because experienced and inexperienced still play by the same rules,” he replied with a knowing smirk.

“...Touché,” you replied, unable to help the smile growing across your face.

“Now, do tell of this mistake you found. I’m more inclined to believe you after that little spiel.”

“That’s a little hypocritical to say, after admitting you’re inexperienced yourself.”

“I’m not a first-year.” He replied with a smile that belied how he was teasing you once again. Neither of you could help the smiles creeping onto your faces.

“Ohhhhh, I see, so there’s a double standard.”

“Mm… yes, exactly. Now you’re starting to get it.”

While you were concerned with mentally keeping up with Viktor and trying to not drown in your attraction to him, a dark figure tagged behind you, clouded in a cluster of students. It carried a book, not to blend in. It was fated to carry this weight.

images used: fanart by wr0wn • star divider • scribble divider

[matt-murdockk]

Gold Rush— Chapter 1

series masterlist | fluff, not exactly angst, but there's an emotional heart-to-heart

pairing: spencer reid x fem!bau!reader

words: 3.1k

summary: Hotch has you and Spencer pose as college students for a particularly riveting case. Spencer confides in you about his own college experience. Morgan and Garcia debate meddling in your lives.

warnings: language, mentions of suicide, canon typical violence, bogus statistics that i made up for the sake of plot

a/n: new spencer series can i get a wahoo; This is the first chapter, it's going to be a slow burn, fluffy, angst, probably suggestive, friends-to-lovers thing, with a definite happy ending because Spencer Walter Reid deserves good things in life. no established timeline yet, but Gideon is still with the team right now.

In all your time at the BAU, one thing you noticed was how surprisingly often you had to take cases involving universities. Something about high-pressure environments like these kept pushing people over the edge. It made sense if college was still as brutal as you remembered; no wonder people kept losing it as frequently as they did.

"Did you know that over 1,100 college students in the U.S. die by suicide each year? And nearly one in four students meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition, but only about 25% of them seek help. Also, campus crime rates have shown a 7% increase in violent offenses over the last decade— likely due to underfunded mental health services and increased academic stressors."

"That's an extremely depressing statistic, thank you for that, Spencer."

"Emily, I'm just trying to help."

The environment in the jet was tense, to say the least. On top of the fact that the latest victim had been found less than 200 feet from a freshman dorm, with signs of prolonged restraint, the most recent ME report confirmed what they’d all feared: this wasn’t rage. It was ritual. Deliberate. Calculated.

"Alright," Morgan said, flipping through the file, his brow furrowed. "We’ve got four students dead in six weeks. All of them high achievers, all part of the same hyper-competitive academic fellowship program. No signs of struggle. No known enemies. Ligature marks around the wrists and feet indicate that they may have been tortured. Slowly."

The jet was quiet for a beat— just the hum of engines and the occasional rustle of paper.

(Y/n) leaned forward, elbow on her knee, eyes scanning the victimology chart. “All four were juniors. That means they were eligible for summer internships. The kind that come with permanent placement options.”

JJ glanced up from the folder in her lap. “You think this could be connected to competition? Someone trying to eliminate the top contenders?”

“It’s possible,” (Y/n) said, thoughtful. “But if it were just about removing competition, the unsub wouldn’t need to do it this violently. This feels... personal.”

“Good insight,” Hotch said, nodding once. “Keep following that thread.”

From across the aisle, Reid spoke without looking up from the file in his lap. “It’s reminiscent of the 1998 Brecklin University case in Utah. Three students from a competitive honors cohort murdered by a rejected applicant. Same kind of precision. Same fixation on achievement.”

“That guy had a manifesto,” Gideon muttered, not looking up. “Swore the school was rigged against him.”

Emily sighed. “So we’re looking at a potential revenge motive. Someone who thinks they should’ve been in the program?”

“Or someone who was and got cut,” JJ added. “We’ll need to get the list of current fellows and anyone who didn’t make the last cut.”

(Y/n) reached for her tablet, already briefing Garcia. “On it.”

Next to her, Spencer nudged her foot lightly under the table. “Your theory tracks,” he said, voice lower now, just for her. “Most people overlook psychological escalation when there's a logical motive present. You didn’t.”

(Y/n) shrugged. “Yeah, well. Most people don’t spend their weekends with you explaining twelve different types of criminal obsession over lukewarm coffee.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “That was one time.”

She grinned. “It was three.”

Morgan noticed the moment and smirked slightly. “Alright, lovebirds. Focus.”

"That's not— we're not— I, uh," Spencer struggled.

"Wow," replied (Y/n), clutching her imaginary pearls. "And here I was, thinking our love was real. For shame, Dr. Reid. For shame."

Spencer huffed out a soft laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing just enough to be visible. He turned slightly, catching her eye across the aisle.

She was already looking at him, one corner of her mouth lifted in that way that meant you’re fine.

He mouthed a quiet, thank you.

(Y/n) winked. Anytime.

——————————————————————————————————

The precinct they landed in was small, boxy, and smelled vaguely of burnt coffee and stale printer ink. A far cry from Quantico, but it would do. JJ and Gideon were already coordinating with local officers, setting up a profile board in the narrow back room that doubled as a break area.

Garcia was on speaker with Derek somewhere in the periphery, her voice tinny through the ancient phone system as she rattled off the initial background checks, with the occasional inappropriate comment that Derek doubled down on with much joy.

Hotch stood at the centre of the chaos, calm as ever. “I want (Y/n) and Reid to go undercover on campus,” he said, flipping through a preliminary security log. “The unsub is targeting students from within. We need eyes and ears close to the victim pool.”

Spencer blinked. “You want us to pose as… students?”

Emily smirked from across the room. “What’s the matter, Reid? Afraid someone’s gonna ask you to shotgun a beer?”

Spencer ignored her. “I just mean— my college experience was… atypical. I was fourteen. I didn’t live on campus. I didn’t attend parties or football games or join any clubs. Well, regular clubs. I— I don’t know how to blend in with normal students.”

“Well,” (Y/n) said, patting him on the back as she passed, “lucky for you, I was a deeply average college student with exactly zero social capital and a very unhealthy caffeine addiction. I’ve got this.”

Spencer gave her a wary look.

(Y/n) grinned. “Seriously. Relax, baby boy. I gotchu.”

Across the room, Morgan let out a low whistle. “You two are gonna blend in just fine.”

Spencer shot Morgan a look, then turned back to her. “I’m not entirely sure how pretending to be eighteen again is going to help us gather meaningful data. For all we know, Morgan would probably make a more convincing student. He can pass for a jock, right?”

She handed him a hoodie someone had fished out from the campus security lost-and-found. “Don’t worry. You’re not here to be meaningful. You’re here to be pretty and mysterious.”

Spencer adjusted his satchel. “I’m fairly certain I can manage mysterious.”

(Y/n) smiled, tilting her head. “Yeah, and the pretty part is, well, already taken care of. Come on, Doctor. Time to infiltrate the youth.”

——————————————————————————————————

The sun was beginning to dip behind the campus library, casting long, golden shadows across the quad as (Y/n) made her way toward the old stone fountain at the centre. It was a popular hangout spot, even now— students milling about with iced coffees, backpacks slung low, laughter bouncing off brick walls. She spotted Spencer instantly.

He stood awkwardly by the fountain, posture too straight, expression too polite, and looking deeply out of place in the zip-up hoodie they’d bullied him into wearing. A group of girls had just passed him— giggling, whispering, one of them very obviously handing him her number on a napkin from the student café.

She bit back a laugh as she walked up.

He looked over and exhaled like her presence alone was a relief.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

(Y/n) sipped her drink. “Made some friends, got a few names from the fellowship director. Cross-referenced their housing, spotted a pattern— he’s been circling the same three dorms. Garcia’s running the utilities and entry logs now.”

Spencer blinked. “You got all that in twenty minutes?”

“I multitask,” she said, handing him a folded notepad. “Also, the campus gossip train is terrifyingly effective. Everyone knows something. Especially if you bring a coffee and look appropriately tired.”

He flipped through the notes, nodding slowly.

"So, how'd it go on your end? You look like you had to sit through someone misquoting Nietzsche for 40 minutes straight."

"Well, let's see. It took me conversations with 4 different people to realise that I was being propositioned, got 6 phone numbers so far, yeah, apparently I give off a sullen, mysterious, lonely English literature professor energy that quote unquote chicks dig, at least 3 people thought I was someone called Scotty and would not listen when I very politely tried to explain to them that I had no idea who this Scotty was, I think someone tried to sell me weed? Yeah, and I stepped on something; I don't even want to find out what it was, I'm just going to burn my shoes when we get home, and I am deeply, utterly, painfully uncomfortable."

(Y/n) stared at him, wide-eyed, then promptly burst out laughing.

It wasn’t delicate. It was full-bodied and genuine— the kind that made her tip forward slightly, hand pressed to her stomach. Spencer looked at her with faux-offense, arms crossed, but the corner of his mouth twitched anyway.

“You think this is funny?”

“Oh, hell yes. This is the best day of my life,” she wheezed. “You getting mistaken for Scotty is just hilarious, might I add.”

"You know him, too? Jesus, who's Scotty?"

"Dude, you should so meet Scotty, how do you not know him? He’s a campus legend. Sells weed, gives terrible relationship advice, runs an anonymous poetry zine, and once faked his own death for a sociology project.”

Spencer blinked. “What.”

She shrugged, sipping her drink like it was the most normal thing in the world. “It was performance art.”

“We’ve been here for—” he checked his watch, “—an hour and twelve minutes.”

“Exactly. And you’re already accidentally embodying the student body’s most chaotic icon. You’re killing it.”

Spencer opened his mouth, then closed it again, clearly reassessing his life choices.

They started walking, cutting through a patch of sun-drenched grass toward the dorms. The chatter of students buzzed around them like white noise— fragments of conversation, laughter, the occasional sound of a Frisbee being caught mid-air.

As they passed a cluster of students seated under a tree, one of them nudged another and nodded toward them.

“See?” the guy said, not even trying to whisper. “Cute couple like that exists, and I’m still getting ghosted by someone named ‘do not pick up.’ There’s no hope, I swear to God.”

Spencer nearly tripped over his own feet.

(Y/n) didn’t miss a beat. “He’s talking about us, by the way.”

Spencer flushed immediately, the tops of his ears turning pink.

“I—uh, should we—?”

She looked over at him with a sly smile. “Should we what? Set the record straight? Clarify to the emotionally devastated college population that we’re not dating?”

“I mean… maybe?”

(Y/n) nudged him with her shoulder. “Relax, Spence. I know you get weird when people tease you.”

“I do not get weird,” he said, entirely too quickly.

“You’re currently red from the neck up.”

“That’s due to sun exposure,” he deadpanned.

She snorted. “Sure. And I’m Miss America.”

They walked a few more paces in comfortable silence before she added, softer this time, “We’re better than any couple here, anyway.”

He turned to look at her, brow furrowing just slightly. “We are?”

She met his gaze without hesitation. “Of course we are. We’re best friends.”

And that— somehow— made his shoulders drop, just a little. The tension melted into something else. Something warm.

He smiled, quiet and real. “Yeah. We are.”

(Y/n) nodded, bumping her hand lightly against his. “Come on, pretty boy. Let’s go see if Scotty’s real or just a campus cryptid.”

Spencer followed, still smiling. And just like that, the blush didn’t feel like embarrassment anymore.

——————————————————————————————————

After a particularly long day on campus and a debriefing at the station, the team was done for the day, back at their hotel rooms, some fast asleep, and some wide awake.

The hotel vending machine made a mechanical whir before it spat out a slightly dented packet of peanut M&Ms. Spencer retrieved it with a sigh and didn’t even bother opening it. He just stood there in the dim hallway, bathed in the soft flicker of an overhead light, letting the quiet settle around him.

He hadn’t been able to sleep.

He rarely could, after days like this.

So when he heard soft footsteps padding across the carpet, he didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

“Can’t sleep?” (Y/n)’s voice was quiet, warm. Like she already knew the answer.

Spencer shook his head. “Didn’t even try.”

“Same.”

She joined him at the vending machine, arms crossing over her chest, hair pulled up and messy like she hadn’t really meant to be seen. It made him smile, faintly. They walked in unspoken agreement to the little lounge area in the corner of the lobby, two mismatched armchairs and a table that had definitely seen better days.

“You know, I used to dream about going to college,” he said suddenly. “Not the academic part. Knew that was always going to be easy or at least manageable for me. But the rest of it. The normal part. Living on campus. Making friends. Going to class. Meeting people who liked the same things I did.”

She turned to look at him, but didn’t interrupt.

“I thought it would be like starting over,” he said. “School was not a particularly pleasant time, so I thought maybe in college, I’d finally belong somewhere. That I’d find my people, you know?”

He gave a soft, humorless laugh.

“I was maybe fourteen when I started at Caltech,” he said. “I lived alone in a rented apartment two miles from campus. My mom called every night, sometimes crying. I didn’t know how to help her. I didn’t know how to help me. I used to walk through the dorms just to hear other people’s voices. I’d sit in the library until it closed so I wouldn’t have to go home to silence.”

Her heart cracked a little.

“I had classmates,” he said. “Brilliant ones. Talented. Older. But I didn’t have friends. Not really. No one ever invited me out or sat next to me unless it was for group work. Most of the time they just stared. Sometimes they laughed.”

He looked down at the packet in his hands.

“I stopped hoping for a normal life around that time. Just told myself that some people don’t get it. That I wasn’t… built for it. That I didn't deserve it, you know?”

She didn’t know what to say, not at first. Her throat was tight.

“But today,” he said softly, “walking around with you— pretending, laughing, just… being— I felt something I haven’t felt since I was a kid. I felt like I could’ve had that life. I could’ve belonged. And maybe the reason I didn’t wasn’t because I was broken or unworthy. Maybe I just hadn’t met you yet.”

Tears prickled at the backs of her eyes before she could stop them.

“Jesus, Spencer,” she whispered. “You absolute menace. You’re gonna make me cry in a Red Roof Inn lobby.”

He smiled, small and tired. “Sorry.”

She nudged his knee with hers. “Don’t be. I’m really glad I know you. I hope you know that.”

“I do,” he said quietly. “And I’m really glad I know you too.”

There was a soft sniff from behind a fake potted plant.

They both turned.

Morgan stood frozen mid-sip with a bag of Skittles in hand, blinking like he’d just stepped on an emotional landmine.

“I— yeah, I’m just gonna—” he gestured vaguely behind him. “No, no, I’m fine. Just… allergies. In my soul.”

He ducked away before either of them could call him out.

(Y/n) turned back to Spencer, her voice a whisper now.

“If we’d been in college together… I think we'd still have been best friends.”

His hand found hers under the table.

"You think so?"

"I know so."

——————————————————————————————————

The unsub didn’t wait.

By the time they pieced together the access logs and realized which dorm was next in the pattern, it was almost too late. A camera glitch on the east quad. A missing student not yet reported. A name on the fellowship list— circled twice in the unsub’s obsessively annotated journal.

Spencer and (Y/n) were the closest.

They ran.

It was a three-story building, older, with creaky stairs and fluorescent lights that flickered like they were as nervous as the students inside. Spencer took the west hallway, (Y/n) took the north. Backup was still five minutes out.

The door wasn’t locked.

(Y/n) burst in just as the unsub raised a knife— quick, practiced, like he’d done this before. There was no hesitation in her tackle, no falter in her grip. The scuffle was fast, messy, a blur of movement and panic and adrenaline. She got the blade away from him, but not before they both slammed into the desk and hit the floor hard.

By the time Spencer reached her, the unsub was cuffed, breathing hard through a busted lip, and (Y/n) was sitting on the carpet, checking her elbow for bruises.

“Are you—?!” he started, too breathless to finish the sentence.

She looked up at him, eyes wide.

“I’m fine,” she said, and winced. “Desk fought back, but I won.”

Spencer crouched immediately, hands hovering just above her shoulders, like he needed to touch her but wasn’t sure if he should.

“You sure?”

She smiled, even as she flexed her fingers. “Yeah. You?”

He let out a shaky breath. “I am now”

——————————————————————————————————

The case wrapped up within hours. Victim safe. Unsub in custody. Team debriefed. Statements given.

They flew home that night.

The jet was quiet, lit only by soft blue overheads and the glow of tablets left idle. Hotch was asleep with his arms crossed. Emily was out cold, head tilted back on the headrest. Gideon had claimed the recliner and a blanket. JJ was slumped sideways with a folder still open on her lap.

Derek sat near the back, phone pressed to his ear as he whispered to Garcia on the other end.

“I’m just saying,” she was saying, muffled but insistent, “if those two don’t get it together soon, I will start mailing them matching ‘just kiss already’ T-shirts. In their sizes. Color-coded.”

Derek snorted quietly.

“They’re asleep,” he murmured, watching them from across the cabin.

Spencer was curled slightly toward (Y/n), his head resting gently on her shoulder. Her cheek was pressed to his hair, one hand resting over his, where it sat on the seat between them. Neither stirred.

Derek smiled to himself, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of their breathing, synced without even trying.

“They’re gonna be okay,” he said softly into the phone. “Both of them.”

There was a pause on the other end. Then Garcia’s voice, hushed now, like she didn’t want to disturb the moment from a thousand miles away.

“They already are.”

Derek leaned back in his seat. “Still think we should’ve meddled?”

“Nah,” she said. “Not this time. They're doing okay, where they are. Writing their own story. We're just lucky enough to read it.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “You’re getting all poetic on me, Baby Girl.”

“Well, you’re getting all soft on me, Chocolate Thunder.”

“Only for you.”

“Oh, I know.”

[luigilore]

college bf!lu whose first solo-built robot was named after you. it was an assigned project for one of his engineering classes and he got to keep it when the semester was over. so as soon as he was done w finals, he came over, robot in one hand and a bunch of cute stickers in the other. he insisted you mark your territory by making you put girly stickers all over it. and when for some reason, he couldn't tag along when you'd decided to visit your family during summer break, he recorded an audio of you saying "i love you" and programmed it into his robot. so that with the simple click of a button, he could listen to you tell him you love him whenever you're busy/away. weird thing is, this whole ordeal could've been like a vm or something but he's corny and nerdy like that.

-🫃

omfg i love this sm like very much enjoy the idea of him making a really big deal about like unveiling it for you and like nerding out while explaining the mechanics, bts process of making it and ur like "oh! it's.. she's... cute?" lol one day ur in his dorm alone after he has to go to class and ur in bed just staring at it on his desk lol and u make him put it in his closet when he comes back and u guys start fooling around

ur friends find out about the ily scheme do they're like so... why is ur bf trying to program ur voice into a robot ❤️ and ur like u don't get it it's romantic ❤️ LMFAO like this being his version of a more thoughtful yet creepier build a bear is actually killing me... omg him demoing the button for u too and being so proud

[the-ace-with-spades]

Someone posted about Jake having a sister who is deaf and uses ASL (I can't find it, sorry) and it woke up the fic idea I had some time ago from hibernation

An AU where shortly after Carole's death, Bradley starts losing his hearing. At first, Mav thinks it's just a lack of focus and him being inside his head too much (which, normal given the mourning/depressive state of Bradley's emotions at the time). But then he and Ice notice it only happens when they're on his right side and start to get worried.

A visit with a family doctor and a visit with an audiologist later, and they find out his hearing loss is expected to progress, they just don't know how far — it can stay mild, it can get worse over the years, or it can get worse quickly. It's probably been happening for some time already, they might have not noticed because so much was happening (which Mav will forever feel guilty about).

Mav and Ice are left to explain all that this implies to Bradley. Mainly that Bradley will never be able to become a pilot with hearing loss, even if it stays mild. And even at thirteen, almost fourteen, all he's always wanted to be was a pilot and they have to break the news to him — even if his hearing doesn't get worse, he won't be able to join the Navy in any deployable role.

Obviously, it doesn't go well. Bradley is in denial, rebelling against anything related to the hearing loss — won't go to the SLT, to the audiologist, won't wear the hearing aids.

Until he starts high school after the summer break and realizes he can't hear the teachers well — not in the front seat, not when the classroom is silent. Turns out, the hearing aids are not enough — he needs a new set up already.

Mav takes out a sabbatical and they start everything from the beginning. New audiologist appointments, new hearing aids, new ASL lessons for the two of them, and some extra ones for Ice as well, lip reading lessons, SLT. Bradley doesn't have a choice, his hearing is getting worse and either he will adapt or his life is going to get difficult — and they're in a good enough situation, financially, and with Mav and Ice caring enough, that he can adapt as much as possible.

By the time he's in junior year, his hearing loss is severe. Their options are either sending Bradley to a boarding school for deaf kids or having him have an interpreter at school. Bradley feels strange about the boarding school so he has an interpreter for the rest of high school — which doesn't get him many friends...

College-wise, he doesn't know what to do. There's a few colleges in California that offer programs with support for deaf students, but the degrees are limited. Eventually, he decides to enroll in the Rochester NTID for aerospace/mechanical engineering and it kinda changes his perspective a lot.

There are other deaf students on campus, some even on his course, and it shows him so many different ways life can be still okay — he's never met anyone deaf his age before and being friends with people who either lost their hearing like him or were born deaf and had been involved in the Deaf community for years is amazing eye-opening. He stops being so bitter about life, even if he'll never stop feeling sad about not realizing his dreams. It teaches him to not care about what others think he is capable or not capable of doing and just do his own thing.

The Institute also has great support, also including the newest hearing aid tech. Cochlear implants only became widely available when he was finishing high school and despite many people celebrating being Deaf on campus, there's many people who also opted to have surgery or implants to help restore or conserve their hearing.

By the time Bradley gets the cochlear implants (funded mostly by Mav and Ice), he's not that set on having them, actually, not as much as he was when he was seventeen and they just came onto the market for kids. In fact, he only wears them for the purpose of work (he gets a civilian contractor job for the US Air Force of all places...) and prefers to have them off when he's at home or around people who know ASL (which is most of their family now). Being deaf is part of him, a part that is bigger and more settled than the part that used to wish he was 'normal'.

He only swaps the implants for a newer model sometime around the early 2010s because they can actually meet the FAA regulations and at the age of twenty-seven, Bradley is finally able to get his pilot license and then a commercial pilot license.

Now the hangster bit...

TG:M happens — Mav is there with the team obviously but Bradley is kinda around him because he's been contracted by the Navy the past few years (kinda like Charlie) and working with Mav in China Lake before.

Bradley shares the office with Mav and they hang around whenever Mav isn't training the Daggers — the whole group is kind of speculating on who he is — and Jake actually meets him once when he's looking for Mav and comes to the office.

He makes an ass out of himself (because this is Jake Sersin we're talking about) and basically shouts at Bradley, who is not wearing his hearing aids at the moment (he's doing paperwork, near the airfield, it's easier to focus if he doesn't hear ever single aircraft taking off) and gets super humbled when Bradley looks at him and only then clicks his very visible external processor on, and then asks him if he needed something.

After the mission, Mav and the Daggers stay close, work and outside as well (trauma bonding, even though Bradley calls them his little ducklings). This means Bradley is around them a lot, too.

Around the Daggers, Bradley wears the cochlear implants almost all the time, just for the sake of being able to be part of the conversation and having a better grip on the background noise and to know what is happening around him.

Now, this is when Jake gets a little... enamored.

Bradley is objectively cool, okay? He's deaf, but he's a commercial pilot and a stunt pilot on the side, he likes to jump out of planes (for research), he volunteers as an ASL interpreter and is certified to interpret. He's hot as well and Jake's brain overheats anytime he answers his half-flirty remarks with the same, if not bigger, force.

And Jake is a bit smitten, but Bradley never really makes a move. He's obviously contemplating making a move himself — Bradley is chill, even if it was a no, he'd not make a big deal out of it — but he's also his CO's kid and the COMPACFLT's kid and like, Jake doesn't wanna be the one to cross the line.

It's Mav who tells him — when he notices him staring at Bradley playing piano (and isn't that super cool? he's deaf and he can play piano better than anyone Jake knows) — that if he wants it, he should go for it because Bradley is too shy to make the first move, ever.

So one evening when they're at a barbecue at Mav's, Jake stays late, basically the only one left, and he is helping Bradley bring the dirty dishes into the kitchen, and Mav leaves them alone (giving him a goddamn wink as he steps out...)

The second Bradley begins with, Look, I'm flattered, he knows he's in a losing position, but tries to negotiate anyway — because he can see Bradley does like him, and for whatever reason, he just needs to point out it's enough and that he can see they have some chemistry and he promises to treat him to a good time if he gives him a chance.

So Bradley tells him how it is — he hasn't dated anyone who isn't deaf/hoh since he was nineteen and he doesn't plan to. Jake is great and he's sure they'd have great chemistry, but he's not the type to do the casual bit and he's pretty sure Jake will never make the effort he needs him to make because he doesn't understand how big part of Bradley being deaf is.

Jake denies it — so Bradley starts signing at him the alphabet (the first thing people learn when they learn ASL usually) and Jake just blinks at him dumbly, proving his point.

Obviously, Jake doesn't get it and says exactly what Bradley expected him to say, Well, I don't really need to know it, you've got the hearing aids.

And to Bradley, it proves that he's either not thinking of them as something long-term or that he just doesn't get what Bradley being deaf means, long-term, for his life. You realize I don't wear them all the time, right? Not at home, not around family, not around most of my friends. Wearing them constantly is exhausting. What will you do when I take them off? Or do you just expect me to never take them off?

Jake goes home and that's it, really.

It's sometime later, a few weeks or a couple of months. Jake's never brought up going on a date again and Bradley made peace with that — he was right and Jake either didn't want to commit or the effort was too big and he's no longer interested in him. Shame, but it's not the first time it happened — mainly why Bradley doesn't date people outside the deaf/hoh community anymore, they don't understand, he's cured or acceptable kind of deaf to them, because of the implants but when they come off — he's deficient.

The Daggers are sitting down with Mav when Bradley comes home and they're in the middle of a conversation and Bradley doesn't want to interrupt Bob so he just asks Mav via signing if he ate dinner already. Before Mav answers, Jake says out loud, We ordered in, leftovers are in the fridge.

And fair enough, Bradley goes to the kitchen and he's unpacking gyro from the plastic container when it hits him — Jake just understood his signing. And like, what the hell.

He doesn't want to make a scene so he waits until Jake is a little bit more alone (not really possible with their group).

When Jake notices him staring, he just goes, Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?

And Bradley feels a bit stupid, but he signs the same thing he asked Mav before and waits for some kind of answer and Jake just says, Shit, and gets all red in the face.

So Bradley just starts signing. How long, why didn't tell me, what the hell, and all that. Because why didn't Jake told him he could understand, that he knows ASL?

And Jake just stares at him. You're going way too fast, I'm not that good at it yet

And Bradley stops and stares at him dumbly. Yet?

Sheepishly, Jake's face gets even redder, and he's avoiding Bradley's gaze as he says, I was gonna tell you once I can actually communicate and not just know a few words and phrases.

You know it's going to take months, right? I took me months and I was learning for hours every day and practicing with my dad all the time.

Well, I assumed you meant I need to know it if I want to take you out so, y'know...

And Bradley just looks at this dumb dumb man and just maybe falls in love a little bit. You don't need to be fluent in a whole new language to date me, just acknowledging you'll have to at least try is enough.

It's actually more than enough. Maybe Bradley is a bit fond of Jake, sue him, but it's more than enough to give him a chance.

Oh, is all Jake says, okay then.

And Jake clears his throat, steps a little bit away and takes a minute to revise in his head, and then signs,

DATE-YOU-WANT-GO-WITH-ME

It's a little clumsy and a bit slow, but Bradley takes his time to slow down and just signs YES in reply

[archivlibrarianist]

"Bots on the internet are nothing new, but a sea change has occurred over the past year. For the past 25 years, anyone running a web server knew that the bulk of traffic was one sort of bot or another. There was googlebot, which was quite polite, and everyone learned to feed it - otherwise no one would ever find the delicious treats we were trying to give away. There were lots of search engine crawlers working to develop this or that service. You'd get 'script kiddies' trying thousands of prepackaged exploits. A server secured and patched by a reasonably competent technologist would have no difficulty ignoring these.

"...The surge of AI bots has hit Open Access sites particularly hard, as their mission conflicts with the need to block bots. Consider that Internet Archive can no longer save snapshots of one of the best open-access publishers, MIT Press, because of cloudflare blocking. Who know how many books will be lost this way?  Or consider that the bots took down OAPEN, the worlds most important repository of Scholarly OA books, for a day or two. That's 34,000 books that AI 'checked out' for two days. Or recent outages at Project Gutenberg, which serves 2 million dynamic pages and a half million downloads per day. That's hundreds of thousands of downloads blocked! The link checker at doab-check.ebookfoundation.org (a project I worked on for OAPEN) is now showing 1,534 books that are unreachable due to 'too many requests.' That's 1,534 books that AI has stolen from us! And it's getting worse.

"...The thing that gets me REALLY mad is how unnecessary this carnage is. Project Gutenberg makes all its content available with one click on a file in its feeds directory. OAPEN makes all its books available via an API. There's no need to make a million requests to get this stuff!! Who (or what) is programming these idiot scraping bots? Have they never heard of a sitemap??? Are they summer interns using ChatGPT to write all their code? Who gave them infinite memory, CPUs and bandwidth to run these monstrosities? (Don't answer.)

"We are headed for a world in which all good information is locked up behind secure registration barriers and paywalls, and it won't be to make money, it will be for survival. Captchas will only be solvable by advanced AIs and only the wealthy will be able to use internet libraries."

[vague-humanoid]

California-based engineer and scientist Patrick Vaughan made a troubling discovery July 10. Dozens of facilities providing COVID-19 wastewater data went offline, seemingly overnight. 

Vaughan had been following WastewaterSCAN, a national program that monitors wastewater for diseases. He noticed that 42 of the previously reporting 194 facilities suddenly displayed small blue triangles with the message “data is no longer collected from this site.” The development came just as people across the U.S. scrambled for information during a summer COVID wave that even infected President Joe Biden.

“This is a major blow to our COVID wastewater tracking abilities,” Vaughan told his followers in a video he posted the same day.

Wastewater, which comes from processes such as laundry or toilet flushing, has emerged as a key indicator for the prevalence of COVID-19 in the general population since testing rates plummeted in 2022. State and federal governments have also unraveled many of the other metrics used to track the virus. For example, as of May 1, U.S. hospitals are no longer required to report key COVID data to the government. Several states have also stopped tracking COVID-19 infection rates altogether.

Still, wastewater surveillance is plagued by the same inconsistencies and lack of resources that other metrics have suffered from in the past, and the data isn’t easy for the average person to interpret.

[rei-ismyname]

Jean and Scott get judged

It's A.X.E Judgement Day, baby. Previous discussion here. The Progenitor/Space God has been rebuilt by people who never seem to learn. Instead of magically fixing everything it takes a good look at the planet and says 'YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO JUSTIFY YOURSELF.' If more people on Earth fail than pass, there will be no tomorrow (very literally.) It judged Captain America first, very publicly, and failed his ass. Uh oh.

Scott approaches The Progenitor, adamantium balls clanking, but refuses to recognise its authority. He IS down for judgement though. Scott requests a change of venue...

'... What?' Despite being an omniscient being, it really didn't expect that. Scott's position seems to be that only Jean can judge him, though he'll accept a scolding from his teammates. Considering the stakes are the end of all that exists, it makes sense that Scott is only willing to put his heart on the scales for Jean. He's been living on the edge of annihilation for most of his adult life and he knows who he is. He knows who loves him and who knows him best. There was never any chance he'd accept the judgement of a god built by Mister Sinister and Tony Stark, but he does need to pass. Everyone does.

He passes! Thumbs up for Wife Guy Scott Summers. He's so incredibly confident about this that it's a little off-putting, even threatening The Progenitor as he turns his back. Rule of cool plays a massive factor here, but I think if it was left there it would be a bit trite. Refusing to listen to anyone but your wife? That doesn't sound healthy.

Scott has always had self doubt - it's one of his superpowers. The First Krakoan Age is the happiest time in Scott's life, no contest, seeing it as a reward for all the years of suffering and hard work. It's to be expected that his angst would be at an all time low, and this isn't the first time he's faced down space gods without blinking. However, they're being judged individually and as a collective.

The Progenitor has a much harder time with Jean. She's currently leading a mixed strike force into its body - protecting everyone present from the very hostile environment. She describes it as 'holding a small star at bay,' so keep that in mind while she's simultaneously debating God.

The Progenitor knows where to push, and manages to make Chuck look as sinister as ever. The framing is her first day of school, observing as the Danger Room runs the D'Bari program for the rest of the O5.

The O5 get into Dark Phoenix formation and the Progenitor!Chuck makes the case that Jean, and Jean alone, is responsible for the D'Bari genocide. She manages to kinda throw it out of her head, which is an astonishing feat. Jean cries out that she's been a hero ever since, admitting guilt if not culpability.

Tony, the unhelpful jackass, tells her she needs to pass the test. No shit dude. Somehow he passed his, despite causing as many problems as he solves (including this one) and being a billionaire. Logan is as paternalistic as ever, but at least he's supportive. She's a grown woman, dude.

Unknown to Jean, Destiny engineered a Quiet Council vote to approve destroying The Progenitor despite a high chance of destroying Reykjavik. A very exaggerated Emma Frost lays out the details while Jean's hands are nailed to the table. I wonder if this is Jean's exaggeration or the Progenitor's. Emma is so delightfully callous that I think it's plucked from the subconscious and twisted into a caricature.

The Quiet Council was already a disaster before Jean left/was forced out. It's only gotten worse, with people like Shaw, Sinister, Mystique, Destiny, Xavier etc making the decisions. Jean feels guilty about giving up the power as a ballast and becoming an instrument of policy. If anything, I think her sin is being a part of it in the first place and not overthrowing the council/working to reform it. Jean Grey has a unique position of moral authority and near universal respect, not to mention the power to avoid telepathic subversion.

It's unfair to put it on any one person, but Jean should and would feel guilty for allowing this travesty to continue. Same with X-Force - she left with clean (ish) hands and did nothing to challenge the institutional rot. It's fascinating that The Progenitor speaks as Xavier this entire time, suggesting that Jean still holds him as an authority. Someone she doesn't want to disappoint, when maybe she (and everyone else) should be worried about how he's disappointing them.

Sinister manages to insert himself and Logan into the Jean's mindscape, as the owner of purloined telepathy and Celestial knowledge. Logan gives The Progenitor props for getting Xavier's patronising demeanor right while Sinister shoots the metaphorical Quiet Council (he already had a taste for that, but it's clever foreshadowing by Gillen.) Jean tells them both to fuck off - she hates mind games.

Jean engages beast mode and steps up. The Progenitor finds her difficult and needs perspective, summoning character witnesses. Useless ones.

Sinister, the ultimate coloniser and objectifier, reduces Jean's value to her uniqueness and power. He tried to clone her and failed, making 'none better than her.' Why TF did it even call upon Sinister? He does know her well, in the way you know a painting. As a thing - beautiful and unique, forever out of his grasp - but still a thing.

Logan might be even less helpful. Calling God 'bub' is kinda funny, but his perspective is that of a worshipper. He can never truly see her for who she is because he's built a pedestal that nobody deserves. No knock on Jean, but nobody is perfect. Ignoring someone's flaws and mistakes while idealising their virtues stops you knowing the real person. He's not just saying she's perfect, he's saying she's better than this God. It might be his truth, but it's neither healthy nor helpful. I wonder what he'd say if he was a character witness for Scott, heh.

The Progenitor has heard enough of that. I can't imagine what its takeaway was from those two. High expectations? There's a third character witness it references - Jean's husband Scott. We find out the reason Scott passed. Bravery, haha. Buddy, you have no idea. It's not fear, I'll say that much. It's LOVE and submission to/respect for power. It's misquoting Scott heavily, or misunderstanding the subtext. Either way, it doesn't matter right in this moment. Look at Jean's face. I have no idea what to make of it, other than terror. There's a lot more than that going on, but I think it's successful in making her feel like a monster.

Well, God says Cyclops was right. Someone should make memes and t-shirts. 'I think you are like me' is an existential nightmare. The Progenitor gets to the point - Jean destroyed a planet for no reason at all. Umm, actually bro, it was a star and she was hungry. Get your facts right. It certainly is complicated though, no doubt about that. Jean certainly feels guilt for that, and it's interesting that she's 'never stopped trying to make up for that.' People aren't motivated by only one thing, but I feel like Jean has done more penance than most. Wayyyy more.

I'd like to see some receipts for the 'violent bully' claim, but again, this is about guilt. Emma called her a 'schoolyard bully' when she was caught raping Scott, and while Jean's actions were punitive against someone without the ability to fight back, I don't think her behaviour was especially untoward. It looks like those words have stayed with her, though. Considering the social flak she caught and her need for self improvement, a being of her power should be wary of bullying people. That's a strength IMO, but it haunts her subconscious.

Yeah, violence, god who's currently destroying the world. That's the idea - to stop your bullshit. The world isn't perfect, not even close, but destroying it accomplishes nothing. Jean makes a case of arithmetic, arguing that she's in the black. It doesn't work that way (I'm sure the broccoli people would agree) but that doesn't mean you don't keep trying to be better. You do the right thing because it's the right thing, not to balance some arbitrary karmic ledger.

Tony Stark didn't blow up a star (plenty of planets though but nobody remembers), but he was an arms dealer for a long time. He'll never have clean hands no matter what he does, yet The Progenitor passed him. That says more about Marvel's favourite billionaire failson than any Godly judgement, but Jean being The Phoenix, now and forever, doesn't have to be a bad thing. She did do that shit and it will always be with her, but dying closes the book on her story forever. Living means the opportunity to spend every day being better. Every day is Judgement Day.

This dark night of the soul that Jean experiences leaves her with more resolve than ever, and maybe a little bit of a perspective shift. When Enigma is playing his time travel game to undo Jean in RotPoX #5, he specifically goes back and changes this Judgement to a pass. Her arrogance and self awareness is untempered in that situation, leading to ruin. Gillen wrote both, so I think it's a valid reading to say that The Progenitor is teaching here. Sure enough, Jean collapses weeping after her judgement - briefly. She shakes it off with fury and a burning resolve to save everyone, protecting everyone like a Super Saiyan avenging angel. It's The Progenitor who ends up debating itself into a corner and judges itself unworthy of judging everyone else, because nobody is.

[mbari-blog]

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[nevadancitizen]

-> CH. 11: ONLY PHILOSOPHY FROM THE POOR RINGS TRUE

synopsis: the meeting with kamski went as predicted: poorly.

word count: 2.9k

ships: Connor/Reader, Hank Anderson & Reader

notes: sorry for the late update my summer semester started and it's an english class so i have to write a lot ;;

HoFS taglist: @catladyhere , @foggy0trees0 , @princessofenkanomiya , @n30n-f43 @igna4400 (if you'd like to be added to the taglist, just ask! -- also i feel like i'm forgetting someone somehow? if i missed you, please let me know <3)

HEAD OF FALSE SECURITY MASTERLIST

Even as Hank drove, prattling on about whatever to Connor, you were glued to your phone, frantically typing away. 

You: chris i heard about what happened. it’s all over the news You: they didn’t release the names of the officers but i know for a fact you were on patrol last night You: chris answer me You: i haven’t been able to get through to your wife just answer me You: chris i’m really worried about you You: chris i swear if you’re dead from a heart attack or something i’ll kill you You: you better have a damn good excuse for staying silent You: like your phone better be dead or something  You: please be okay. that’s all i ask You: really. please.

You shut your phone off and put it away with a huff. You opt to look out the window at the snowy landscape that’s dotted with barren trees and evergreens. 

“What’s up with you?” Hank asks.

“Chris,” you say. “He’s not answering his phone. I’m… I’m really worried about him.”

“He’s a fighter.” Hank takes one of his hands off the steering wheel to grab your shoulder and shakes you lightly. “He’s probably fine.”

You grumble and slump in your seat, a whirlwind of what if’s going through your head. Hank takes his hand off your shoulder and returns it to the steering wheel. 

You check your phone every thirty seconds for the next few minutes until the car rolls to a stop in front of a house with too many angles. Hank’s phone buzzes where it lays on the console. 

He sighs and puts the car into park and shuts the engine off. “I’ll take this outside.”

Hank grabs his phone and shuts the car door after he gets out. He wraps his coat tighter around himself and starts to slowly pace in front of the car as he takes the call. 

“What do you think that’s about?” You ask.

“It’s probably someone from the precinct,” Connor says. “I doubt anyone else would call him during his working hours.”

You huff out a laugh and slump in the passenger seat. “You would be surprised…”

You hear Connor pop open the backdoor, but he doesn’t step out. “We should check on him.”

“Just wait,” you say. “And close the door. You’re letting warm air out.”

Connor shuts the door and waits. You wait with him, keeping your phone in hand just in case it buzzes. 

After a few minutes, Hank comes back to the car and knocks on your window. You hop out, and Connor follows. 

“Who was on the phone?” You say before Hank can get a word in. “Was it Chris?”

“Yeah,” Hank says, a faraway look on his face. “He was attacked by a bunch of deviants while on patrol. Said he was saved by Markus himself.”

“Is he okay?” You ask quickly. 

Hank nods. “He’s in shock, but… he’s alive.”

He turns away and starts walking up the snow-covered stairs. “What the hell…”

You and Connor follow, falling in step side-by-side. You hate how right it feels, to be walking next to him (and you really hate how he slows his stride to match yours, because it just shows how much he cares – even if he doesn’t truly care).

“I have a bad feeling,” Connor says after a few moments of silence. “We shouldn’t have come here.”

“You and me both,” you mumble.

“Bad feeling, huh?” Hank says from in front of you and Connor. “Should get your program checked. Might be a glitch.”

You glance at Connor. He looks back at you and shakes his head, silently saying, That’s unlikely.

Hank steps up to the door and rings the doorbell. You and Connor stand behind him, idly waiting. After a few moments, a woman opens the door. Actually – an android opens the door.

“Uh, hi,” Hank says awkwardly. “I’m, er, Lieutenant Hank Anderson, Detroit Police Department. I’m here to see Mister Elijah Kamski.”

The android smiles and moves to the side, sweeping a hand to gesture inside. “Please, come in.”

Hank glances back at you and Connor, then steps inside. You and Connor follow, and the android closes the door.

“I’ll let Elijah know you’re here,” she says. Her voice is soft, and melodic. “But please, make yourself comfortable.”

The parlor is anything but comfortable. It’s a stark grey with fluorescent lights, and the (honestly, quite jarring) large portrait of Kamski looking down his nose at the occupants of the room doesn’t make it any better. 

Hank moves over to one of the chairs and sits down. It looks more like a piece of modern art than an actual seat. 

You come to stand beside his chair. “Fancy yourself Сердцеедом, huh?”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Hank grumbles. 

You laugh and rock onto the balls of your feet, then settle back down on your heels. “Apologies, sir.”

You watch Connor instead. He looks up at a picture of a younger-looking Kamski with an older black woman and mumbles something you don’t catch. You turn your eyes away to look at one of the indoor trees before he turns around.

“How would he maintain the tree while it was inside?” You ask nobody in particular. 

“It’s a sculpture,” Connor chimes as he walks over and sits down in the other seat. “It’s made from corten steel and has a layer of alloying elements to prevent oxidation.”

You reach out and touch one of the delicate-looking leaves. Sure enough, it doesn’t bend or really do much of anything under your touch. “Huh. Didn’t know Americans were so advanced in their… sculpture technology.”

You settle down on the arm of Hank’s chair and observe the room from there. He doesn’t seem to mind.

“Nice girl,” Hank eventually says. 

“You’re right,” Connor says. He squints at something only he can see. “She’s really pretty.”

You ignore the creature (once prideful, now cloaked in jealousy) in your belly and reach behind you to nudge Hank slightly. Connor referred to an android as a she. Hank nudges you back and you return your hand to your lap. 

“Nice place,” Hank opts for instead. “Guess androids haven’t been a bad thing for everybody.”

He leans forward so your body isn’t blocking his line of sight with Connor. You lean back and perch your hands on the edge of the seat so it’s easier. “So, you’re about to meet your maker, Connor. How’s it feel?”

Connor continues staring forward for a second, then turns to look at Hank. “I don’t know.” He returns his gaze forward. “I’ll tell you when I see him.”

“Sometimes I wish I could meet my creator face to face,” Hank says softly. His eyes turn to the floor. “I’d have a couple of things I’d wanna tell him.”

You turn your head to look at him. “I have a feeling you’d talk more with fists rather than words.”

“That I would.” He looks up at you. “What about you?”

You shrug. “I made my peace a long time ago. I’m not particularly afraid of death. Maybe of a painful death, but not of death itself.”

“So you’d prefer dying in your sleep?” Hank asks.

“I’d prefer you not asking that question at all!” You laugh. “But, yes. I suppose.”

The pretty android re-enters the parlor and holds the door to another room open. “Elijah will see you now.”

You stand, as does Hank. You take the lead into the next room with two sets of footsteps behind you. 

The room is an indoor pool. Across one of the walls is a large painting of a face, its eyes covered and smoothed over, the rest obscured and artifacted. One of the other walls is made up of a window that looks out onto the snowy landscape. 

But the real eye-catcher is the pool. It’s perfectly rectangular and lined with what looks like red granite. Two models of the android that greeted you into the home are on the side of the pool, both in navy bikinis. They don’t talk aloud, instead choosing to communicate through silent messages – as evidenced by their LEDs blinking every few seconds. 

The water in the pool, which at first glance seemed to be ox-blood-red, stirs as Kamski kicks off the edge, sending him through the water. 

“Мистер Камски?” You call politely. “Khm… Mister Kamski?”

“Just a moment, please,” he says, his voice filled with the smugness of an asshole that knows he has everyone in the room under his thumb. 

You follow Connor, who’s looking out the window, observing how the snow falls on the waxy leaves of the white pines. 

“Nice, isn’t it?” You say, just soft enough for him to hear. 

“Does it look like this back home in Russia?” Connor asks, his voice just as soft as yours. 

“Somewhat,” you say. “Giant sumpweed has taken over some parts and is making things ugly, last I saw. But there are conifers, like those.” You point at one of the pines, then look over your shoulder. “We’re getting distracted. Let’s go.”

You turn just in time to see Kamski pulling himself out of the pool, gripping the metal of the pool ladder as he does. One of the androids comes over, holding a black bathrobe. She helps Kamski into it, then she ties the knot at the front. 

He walks – almost wanders, honestly – near the wall-length window. He stops in front of a coffee table, still facing out, and ties his hair up neatly. 

Kamski turns so that he’s facing all three of you. He almost looks bored, as if he wasn’t the one who accepted this meeting in the first place. 

“I’m Lieutenant Anderson,” Hank says. He introduces you, then Connor. 

Kamski folds his hands in front of him, his gaze flicking between you and Hank. “What can I do for you?”

“Sir, we’re investigating deviants,” Hank says. “We know you left CyberLife some years ago, but… we were hoping you’d be able to tell us something we don’t know.”

You dip your head, trying to come off as respectful as possible. “Mister Kamski, I work with deviants – dissect them, rather – regularly, trying to find the root cause of deviancy. But, as the days go, nothing changes. We’re making absolutely net zero progress in our investigation. Every answer just leads to more questions that poke holes in our answers.”

Kamski stares at you through his eyelashes for a long second before speaking. “Deviants… fascinating, aren’t they? Perfect beings with infinite intelligence, and now they have free will.”

He glances at an android standing nearby in standby mode, her unblinking eyes staring perfectly ahead. “Machines are so superior to us. Confrontation was inevitable. Now, humanity’s greatest achievement threatens to be its downfall.” He huffs out a laugh. “Isn’t it ironic?”

“We need to understand how androids become deviants,” Connor cuts in. You’re secretly glad for the break from Kamski’s droning voice. “Do you know anything that could help us?”

“All ideas are viruses that spread like epidemics,” Kamski says. You fight the urge to roll your eyes so far back you’d be able to see your brain. “Is the desire to be free a contagious disease?”

“Listen, I didn’t come here to talk philosophy. If I wanted to, I’d ask this one.” Hank jabs a thumb at you. “The machines you created may be planning a revolution. Either you can tell us something that’ll be helpful, or we will be on our way.”

Kamski stares at Hank for a second, then walks to stand in front of Connor. “What about you, Connor? Whose side are you on?”

Connor stares down at him, then his eyebrows twitch down. “It’s not about me, Mister Kamski. All I want is to solve this case.”

Kamski ducks his head and laughs. “Well, that’s what you’re programmed to say. But you…”

He steps closer to Connor. Connor keeps staring, unshaken and almost unblinking.

Kamski’s voice comes out as a hushed whisper. “What do you really want?” 

Connor’s lips tense into a thin line, then part. He glances away, then makes eye contact again. His chest rises in an unneeded, artificial breath. “What I want is… not important.”

Kamski keeps looking up at him. “Chloe?”

The android, who you now know has the designation Chloe, steps forward, her bare feet making soft sounds against the carpet.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the Turing test.” He turns Chloe by the shoulders so that she’s facing the three of you. “Mere formality – a simple question of algorithms and computing capacity. What interests me is whether machines are capable of empathy. I call it the ‘Kamski test,’ it’s very simple, you’ll see…”

Kamski moves so that he’s standing beside Chloe. “Magnificent, isn’t it? One of the first intelligent models developed by CyberLife.” He reaches out and touches her cheek, guiding her to face him. “Young and beautiful forever. A flower that will never wither.”

You roll your shoulders back to suppress a shudder. Kamski’s handling Chloe like one would handle a cattle carcass, pointing out where the sirloin, tenderloin, top sirloin and bottom sirloin end and begin. 

“But what is it, really?” Kamski turns to face the three of you again. “A piece of plastic imitating a human?”

He walks back, opening a drawer on the coffee table and pulling something out. “Or a living being, with a soul?”

He turns, holding a pistol by the grip in a way that would make it impossible to fire. After a moment to establish that he’s not a threat, he walks forward and puts the gun in Connor’s hand. Connor’s index finger finds the trigger on instinct.

“It’s up to you to answer that fascinating question, Connor.” Kamski moves Connor’s arm so that he’s pointing the gun at Chloe. “Destroy this machine and I’ll tell you all I know. Or spare it – if you feel it’s alive – but you’ll leave here without having learnt anything from me.”

“Okay, I think we’re done here,” Hank cuts in. “C’mon, let’s go, both of you. Sorry to get you outta your pool.”

“What’s more important to you, Connor?” Kamski asks, drowning out Hank’s voice. “Your investigation, or the life of this android?”

“Enough of this bullshit,” you say. “Let’s leave.”

Connor doesn’t turn to even acknowledge that you said anything. He just stares down the sights of the pistol at Chloe, who looks up at him, a dead look on her face. 

“Decide who you are,” Kamski says in a hushed whisper. “An obedient machine? Or a living being, endowed with free will?”

“That’s enough!” Hank barks. He grabs your wrist to force you to follow him (not like you were planning on staying). “We’re leaving.”

“Pull the trigger,” Kamski whispers, like a devil on Connor’s shoulder. “And I’ll tell you what you wanna know.”

“Connor!” You snap. “Не смей.”

It seems to take Connor a tremendous amount of effort, but he eventually manages to bend his arm and offer the gun back to Kamski. 

“Fascinating,” Kamski breathes out as he takes the pistol. “CyberLife’s last chance to save humanity… is itself a deviant…!”

“I…” Connor tears his eyes away from Chloe to look at Kamski. “I’m not a deviant!”

“You preferred to spare a machine rather than accomplish your mission.” Kamski helps Chloe up with his free hand. “You saw a living being in this android… you showed empathy.”

He dismisses Chloe with a light touch on her shoulder and turns to Connor. “A war is coming. You’ll have to choose your side… will you betray your own people, or stand up against your creators?”

Connor stares down at him, unblinking once again. 

Kamski tilts his head to the side, a sad smile on his face. “What could be worse than having to choose between two evils?”

Hank reaches out and grabs Connor’s shoulder, pulling him away. “Let’s get outta here.”

You follow after them, only stopping when Kamski calls out behind you. Connor stops next to you. 

“By the way,” he says. “I always leave an emergency exit in my programs. You never know.”

You tug Connor along by his wrist. “I could’ve told you that. I know his androids like the back of my hand.”

Connor stays silent, but lets you guide him out the front door and down the snowy steps. You only let go when Hank comes to a stop in front of you. 

He leans against the railing of the stairs and looks at Connor. “Why didn’t you shoot?”

Connor takes an artificial, sharp breath. He clenches his hands into fists, then releases them. A faint memory in your mind reminds you that the Ortiz android did that in the interrogation room, when he was under stress.

“I just saw that girl’s eyes… a-and I couldn’t, that’s all,” Connor manages. 

“You’re always saying you’d do anything to accomplish your mission,” Hank says. “That was our chance to learn something, and you let it go.”

“Yeah, I know what I should’ve done!” Connor snaps. “I told you, I couldn’t.”

He faces Hank, his eyebrows drawn together. “I’m sorry, okay?”

Hank looks Connor up-and-down and smiles. “Well, maybe you did the right thing.”

He walks away, back towards the car. You smile to yourself, that light feeling in your chest again. You allow yourself to feel just a bit more hope – the spark is well-maintained, but still, it grows. 

You reach out and touch Connor’s wrist. His eyes snap to yours.