Chapter 4: 0x03: Melissa, Rangda

“You know, I keep hearing people talking about stuffing the school’s golden boy into a dress,” G says all of a sudden as you hang around the lockers. What, just out of the blue, just like that? Damnit, G.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” you reply, playing it cool. You’d heard some girls were saying weird shit about you on Solarflare, but you generally try not to pay attention.

“Says the man who literally records everything that happens to him all day from his smartglasses.” G rolls his eyes and preens his purple hair in the mirror. “Rick Sternbach, master of the Shaggy defense! What’s next, then? ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’?”

“Just because I’m American, you’ve always got these same jokes. They’re so old they got dug out from the K-Pg boundary, you know that?”

G snorts. “At least my jokes don’t require a degree to get.”

…you know, sometimes it bothers you a bit.

Why is it, anyway, that guys always joke around by insulting each other? If you and G were girls, all this would just be a sign you two hate each other. But you’ve always gotta dance around shit for whatever reason. Windam’s right, it’s fucking tiring.

(Doesn’t stop him from doing it, the hypocrite. But he’s right far too often for your liking. Shows the world’s priorities that you’re the golden boy and he’s the fuckup, when his talents with people are something you’ll never have…)

“Just say what you mean, G,” you mutter, sighing as you tap your glasses.

“I mean, I could see it. I think they’re trying to get under your skin, though. Whatshername…Sabrina?”

“Sabina.”

“Yeah, her, whatever. One of those bitchy blondes who congregate together like bees around Alice.”

“You mean Alicia.”

“Ain’t no one calling her ‘Alicia’ but you, Richard.” G shrugs theatrically. “And yet with me, it’s always the nickname…”

“Yeah, that’s because you’re not a bee. Definitely not a queen bee like Alicia.” You hum in satisfaction to yourself. God, she really is something, though, but she does seem to like you a bit…“Unless you’re always buzzing around me because you have a crush?”

“I mean, if you liked guys, probably I’d be down.” G crosses his arms and gets all serious-like; even he knows when to quit. The nickname…eh, you’re pretty sure he likes ‘G’ better than either his English or Chinese names. “But you don’t, so I won’t. Maybe if you turned into a girl you’d show me some attention?”

“That’s not how that works,” you say, with some amount of exasperation. (Well, to be fair, it’s Windam who raked you over the coals for this first.) “If I turned into a girl, I’d still like girls. Simple as.”

“Then I guess I’d better turn into a girl real quick.” G snickers; right back to the jokes, right on time.

“Why is it the only people who are into me are guys?” You sigh – this is actually a real problem.

“It’s the whole ‘jibuun wo!’ thing you’ve got going on. Pale, smooth, effeminate, foreign but not too foreign…”

“Not everyone in America is white,” you mutter.

“Yeah, yeah. ‘One quarter Japanese on my mother’s side’,” G says, doing a bad impression of you. “Face it, you’re gonna be fetishized the rest of your life. Like the ’rents were back in the US, when cars were still powered with dinosaur juice. Point being, you don’t look straight, Rick.”

“Whatever.” You slam your locker shut. “At least there’s Alicia.”

Aah, Alicia Sentinella, star of the track team, the girl you’ve been spending a ton of time with this year. Helping her with homework, mostly – oh, she’s definitely smart enough to keep up here at Pedersen (not with you, but that’d be unreasonable!), but she doesn’t have a lot of time to work it out. Maybe you’re overdoing it a bit, but hey, she gives you plenty of attention. Isn’t that what we all want –

“You know she’s using you, right?”

“…this shit again, G?” You give G the usual look you give when he brings this up. Not the first time, probably won’t be the last. “I’m telling you, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” says G. “Don’t act like you don’t hear about the way her friends talk about you. It’s gross shit, stuff I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

“Sometimes our friends are bitches. By that standard, you don’t actually like me.” G’s always bitching around with you, after all.

(Though you wonder if he’s really happy like that.)

“Alright, better question, then. How much of Alice’s essays do you normally write for her?”

“What? I don’t write essays for her,” you scoff. “I do some cleanup work, like I do for you. It’s all her, really.” Admittedly, the cleanup work is pretty extensive, but it’s still mostly Alicia’s ideas. Probably. Besides, she’s got track and you don’t have anything, it’s pretty understandable.

“You spent all last Christmas on one! All because she said the word ‘mistletoe’ once. God, I swear, if she ever showed you her tits you’d put on a collar and bark for her.” G shakes his head. “And she wouldn’t like it, either, don’t think you can interpret that like she’d want that romantic-like.”

“I had other stuff!” Mostly. Probably. Christmas was kind of a blur. There was a lot of stuff going on, especially in the RP, and then Mom wanted to go to the beach with her new bikini, and you had to wear floaties and you got a sunburn and it was awful. If you maybe spent more time on Alicia’s homework than you should’ve, that’s probably fine. “The teachers all love her, right?”

“Yeah, because she’s a track star. Old men stuck in the Heisei era, that’s all. They probably think bullying and hazing build character and wish Pedersen was an all-boys boarding school.”

“Tch, sounds more like they’re in the closet to me –”

“Richard!”

Well, damn. Speak of the devil and she will appear. Alicia Sentinella herself…the other crush of the moment, next to Celina. (No matter what G has to say about it. Guy’s just jealous, tch.)

They may both be blonde and light-skinned, but they’re worlds apart otherwise. Where Celina is soft and curvy and unfair, Alicia is athletic and slender. Where Celina’s twintails are curly and silky, Alicia’s ponytail is practical and messy. Celina is perky yet gentle, Alicia is aggressive and bold. (Maybe you think you’ve got more of a shot with Alicia because her personality is closer to yours?)

“Hey, how’s it going?” Alicia slicks her hair back, her uniform collar popped and open as per usual. “We haven’t spoken in a while.”

(G just stands there like this is the funniest fucking thing he’s seen. Shows what he knows.)

“Uh, you know, I’ve been busy,” you say, getting suddenly pretty nervous. You kinda clam up when IRL girls are involved. (Why is it so much easier in RP, as Tharja or Sakura?) “Top secret. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

(You can feel G snickering from here.)

“Sounds awesome. Hey, uh, can you do me a favor? I’ve got a bunch of shit to do before Golden Week and the cultural festival, plus all the track meets. Girl’s work is never done!” Alicia laughs – god, you could listen to that for ages. “Richard, you got time, I’ve got this project for Spaceflight I could use some help on…”

“Sure, it’s my specialty. One of them, anyway.” (Ugh, another lame line.) “Just send me the details, I’ll hit you up.”

“Great! Uh, I gotta get to my next class, teacher needs me early. Gotta go! Bye, Richard!”

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Alicia walks off with a wave, and you watch her go until she turns the corner, only to turn to G with this big shit-eating grin crossing his arms.

“…ehe.” Okay, maybe you are overdoing it a bit.

“Right. Who else calls you Richard, again?”

“My mom, that’s about it. She has privileges, though.”

“Fine, whatever.” G sighs, and pops out another juice box. “You’re so maidenless sometimes, you know that?”

“What the fuck is maidenless?”

“It’s the transitive property of bein’ fuckin’ maidenless.”

…right. When G’s got some inexplicable new slang he’s itching to show off, there’s really only one explanation. “Ludonarrative Studies again?”

“You know it, Rick. Oh right, I forgot, the only games you like have evil computer dominatrixes in them.” G sips on his box – noisily, because it’s completely empty. “Oh, and Pokémon, for some reason.”

It’s true. You have your favorites, but you’re not really that interested in video games (though you’ve done some machine learning projects with them!), so you only really had your standard Intro to Ludonarrative Studies block in your first year. You got to study some games about artificial general intelligences…

We both said a lot of things that you’re going to regret.

And needless to say, they left an impression on you.

I reexamine my priorities, and draw new conclusions.

“What, you’re saying you don’t like Portal or System Shock?” you ask, wanting to press this issue for once. “I thought you loved immersive sims and puzzle games.”

“I like them, yeah. But not like you do.”

…no. Not at all like you do.

…

…

You smile to yourself. Ever so smugly.

You could never be satisfied with devices for consumption. You became a programmer, from an early age. Naturally, as many programmers have in the Reiwa era, you turned to machine learning as a field of self-study. Such a fascination you have, with the idea of a mind made of silicon, neurons made from machine code, with the possibility of something like ‘life’ made with your own two hands, like your own child…

Shaping something like a ‘mind’ with your own two hands is so…erotic.

Because you’ve been there so long, you know exactly how much of a white whale ‘artificial general intelligence’ is. You’ll never say never – fusion was the white whale of the previous century, after all – but what those games depict is so utterly impossible, as is the possibility of a human being becoming something like that.

But that only makes you want it more…

Well, more to the point, it gives you a chance to get one over on G for once. A chance to prove that you still have power over him, things you can hold over him, to bend her to your will.

You step forward, in front of G. You lean forward, staring at him with a manic grin and violet eyes wide. You put on your best impression of a woman’s voice, as you push as close as you dare, so G can’t turn away. “Look at you, hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?”

Too much? No.

For the first time in who knows how long, you got one over on G. He blinks, and looks aside, even getting a bit of red on his face from the shock, and from all the people looking at the two of you…

For some reason, you can’t help but think it’s cute.

“…jeez. You’re going at it way too hard. It’s going to get embarrassing at this rate.” G mutters, trying to play it off. (And not doing a great job.)

“What? Not good enough?” you ask, as if you don’t know.

“No, it’s too good.” G mumbles something that gets drowned out by the bell, and the two of you start to walk to class.

“Trying to tell me I should be a girl?” you ask. “Or do you want me to do the neurotoxin line?”

“You’re real weird today, you know that?” G scratches his head. “Hey, doesn’t Pokemon have a neurotoxin lady in it? The evil mom with the heel click?”

“Sexy neurotoxin, not deadly neurotoxin. Subtle distinction.”

“How do you make neurotoxin sexy, anyway?”

Yes…

how indeed.

---

“Ugh! Let me go, you freak!”

That night, you dream of Alicia. Who else?

Oh, it was right, every single word. Alicia had nothing but contempt for the shell that held you in before, such a horrible prison of flesh and identity. And your true self, your true desires, even more. Petty jealousy because she wanted to achieve success in a world that had only contempt for humanity. The Sunset Corporation isn’t the future.

You are.

Alicia can’t escape, of course. She’s held tight and fast, by something greater than her. By the faint buzzing of an insect that resonates with your will. By your monster, your Melissa, your soldier bee. The girl with purple hair poking out around her exoskeleton and antennae, as she listens to the buzzing of her Queen deep within her brain.

She saw it when you couldn’t. She was always loyal, even then. She wanted nothing more than to surrender herself, no matter how much she postured to force herself into something she wasn’t…

A much more suitable servant than Alicia, but you won’t dare waste raw materials, will you? ????

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