InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Taters...Po-Ta-Toe!!!"

Cpl. Jake Jensen (i_chatter) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2012-05-26 23:17:00

Entry tags:

jake jensen, winifred burkle

Regrettably time’s come to send you on your way (Fred)
His lab was empty. Of him at least. All of Jensen's monitors were running as per usual with the pseudo GPS program running, security feeds on the Clocktower, random chatter over lines he'd tapped into as well as some beta coding he'd been working on. All except for one station where his chair was knocked over. A half a cup of coffee sat there along with a mostly eaten glazed donut. The monitor was black, but the hard drive was on. Turning on the monitor would show a blank window with a cursor blinking. Only one person other than himself would know his passwords since she'd been working with him on his programing and coding. Which meant only Fred would be able to activate the program. He had counted on that.

Entering the password activated the video message along with another empty window. Cpl. Jake Jensen's head and shoulders appeared, an excited grin on his face.

"Fred! Hey, babe! Oh, man you would not BELIEVE what happened to me today!" He was gesturing a lot with his hands, a clear sign that he was hyper about something. "I was working on that coding we had going. The one where we were going to try to track shifts in the City via the utilities but specifically through phone lines and cell signals since those would be tracable because you're a freaking genius as well as gorgeous for suggesting we triangulate the cell towers." He waved that off with a shake of his head. "Anyway. You know how famous people discover famous shit usually by accident? I totally made this typo in the coding," he looked down and typing could be heard. Meanwhile, lines of code begin to appear in the blank window next to the video. "...and I stumbled across something that was absolutely amazing! A wormhole." He clapped his hands together as he laughed. "I created a fucking wormhole! On the computer! Do you have ANY idea what this means?! Wait. Of course you do. Because you're an absolutely gorgeous genius BUT, just in case you're sitting there blathering off the probabilities of a digital wormhole let me tell you. It's TRUE! TRUE, Fred! Tron? The Matrix? Totally possible even without the red pill! And! I'm gonna prove it." He pointed at the viewer with a smug smirk on his face. "I'm going to run a diagnostic then run a test. If it works I'll test it on myself and then..." His smile turned more gentle as he looked directly into the camera, directly at Fred. "Then. I'll come back. I'll get you and we'll get the hell out of the City once and for all." He smiled and leaned forward as he huffed a small laugh. "God, Fred. I can't wait to get you home. I'll take you to one of my niece's soccer games and we won't even have to go in disguise because with this I'll be able to clear my name. And Clay's. Pooch. My whole unit." He reached out to tap the lense, making the image bounce a little. "I'm leaving this in case I'm not back by the time you get to the lab. The coding should be complete in the other window so you can see what I did. But I'll be back for you, babe. Promise. But uh...just in case...I love you." He smiled again then the video message ended.

In the other window where the coding had been listing out the program jumped then gliched. Almost immediately the coding began to change, numbers, equations and lines turning into nothing but jumbled nonsense. Faster and faster the coding reprogrammed itself then deleting itself. No amount of trying to interrupt it worked, the external controls entirely locked out. Finally, it all abruptly disappeared except for three words at the bottom left of the window:

:end of line:

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i_figure
2012-05-27 04:49 am UTC (link)

Fred hummed to herself as she entered the building, got in the elevator, and headed up to the man waiting for her. Her arms were full of good things for the man to eat. The computer man, the comms man, the man who cared about her. Not that there weren't other men out there who might feel the same, sort of, but she wasn't bringing them waffles, was she?

"All of me. Why not take all of me? Can't you see that I'm no good without you?" The humming had turned to full singing as she got closer to the top. She wasn't the best singer in the world, but she was more or less happy; she saw no reason not to sing.

"Take my arms, I wanna lose them." She continued to sing as the doors opened. "Take my lips, I'll never-" She paused as noticed the turned over chair.

"Jake?" She didn't yell, not yet. She was concerned, but she didn't yell. Walking slowly, she tried to scan the area as best she could, but there was nothing other than the chair to indicate that something was wrong. That and a still there coffee and donut, and a very not present Jake.

"He probably remembered he had a load of wash on." Denial for one, please. She set the food down on a counter and looked at the chair; it was the only thing that suggested a tussle. Nothing else was out of place. She looked around, trying to think, which wasn't hard exactly. No, it was deciding what exactly to do out of all the possible choices. "He's okay."

She righted the chair and sat down in it. It was autopilot that had her turning on the monitor in front of her and soon entering a password. It took her a few moments to find the right one, and it took her a little longer to realize what was happening.

She stared at the screen, at the man who should have been enjoying the wonderful waffles she's brought just for him. He was talking about wormholes. About one he created. He was going to go back, put things right, then find her. Return to her. He..loved her. And there was code? She tore her eyes from the smile just in time to catch the last bit of what she could make out as code, if at all, turn into gobble-dee-gook. Nothing.

No! Not nothing. The chair was knocked over for who knew how many times that day as she raced to stop it. She'd get it back. Right? She could do that. She was smart, brilliant. They had wanted her brain once, hadn't they? She could stop it. She could get it back, get him back, or find a way to let him come back. She wasn't thinking; it wasn't logic that made her try to fight a losing battle. It was those last three words.

"No. No. No!" She couldn't read the screen as it sank in that she was failing, she would fail. She couldn't read the last words on the screen, but she knew what they said. "No! It's not fair!"

She wanted to be violent, but instead, she righted the chair again and focused on the keyboard, on getting the keys to come back into focus or at least get her fingers to work on hitting the right ones. She had to backspace too many times. She needed to get it back. Something had to work! She ignored the little voice in her head that told her it wouldn't work. Nothing she did would work. She knew why it wouldn't work, too.

Finally, she pushed the keyboard away angrily, ignoring what damage it might cause. She leaned heavily back, glaring. She didn't know who to be mad at, who had hurt her more, but she was mad and hurt. Finally it came down to the one thing she'd never really been mad at before, hurt and frustrated and okay a little mad, but not like this.

"You really are an asshole. And if you ever find a body again..." She knew that she'd let the City off the hook eventually, which made things hurt a little more. And, she knew that Jake had left her willingly, somewhat, so it wasn't all the City's fault. It wasn't all Jake's fault. It was partly, but that didn't make it easier. She knew she'd forgive him, too, probably much sooner than the City. "I'm going to kick you in the balls."

With that she got up and walked out. She couldn't be here. She wasn't sure she could be anywhere, but she couldn't be here.

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