2 Die 4 You

jakob tower tango (he had it coming)

To no one's surprise, Marino did not come to breakfast. Even less of a surprise was Dynamo continuing to be a nuisance in her wake.

"You say one wrong thing, and suddenly you're a criminal." he bemoaned- loudly, and rather insincerely. "What could I have done to deserve this much ire in a day?"

"Maybe it's because you're victim blaming the dead." Zero informed him in a short tone.

"You've also been incredibly sexist every morning since the girls decided to share their morning routine with each other." X pointed out as well.

"You even tried to say that Aero is a transvestite!" Axl also chimed in, slamming his hands on the table. "Well jokes on you, buddy! She's cis, straight, and loves it!"

Everyone gave Axl a confused look- one he brushed off with his own air of righteous justice. Dynamo ended up shaking his head with a sigh.

"That is all completely undermining my point." he then tried to tell them.

Zero cocked an eyebrow. "Which is?"

"That it's all Marino's fault!" Dynamo proclaimed- sounding as if the idea just hit him. "I'm not responsible for that change in 'step on me' energy to whatever little pity party she's having now! Just stress alone doesn't do that. Which leads me to believe that she must be on her peri-"

A loud smack stopped Dynamo from finishing his sentence. Reeling back his hand was Zero, who definitely was not going to take that kind of talk this morning.

"Utter one more word, and you'll be nursing bleeding bruises for the next month." he threatened.

"From you, or is everyone going to rotate?"

"I'll let you decide."

Dynamo grimaced. He knew he was crossing boundaries. At the same time, he knew he was the only one left to step on them.

Which meant he had to be good.

If only being good wasn't so... so... boring.

"Whatever," Dynamo said as he finally resigned. "I'll just be out of everyone's way from now on. Those who can't keep their mouth shut, deserve to be alone. Right?"

No one offered him any words of kindness or dissatisfaction as Dynamo left the cafeteria. In the few moments after, X realized just how quiet the room was nowadays. Thankfully, the air returned to a more jovial mood with Axl and Zero there, but the lack of others only kept the reminder in the back of his head.

Who would go Maverick next?

-

X found himself wandering around the tower after breakfast. His feet just wanted to move instead of staying in one place for too long. They led him around the first floor, and then the second. Light sounds of keyboard tapping finally brought him out of his half-aware daze. He followed them into the science lab. Sitting at the research terminals was Aero.

"What are you working on?" X spoke up.

Aero's whole body jolted upright, as if she had suddenly been woken up. She turned around to face him. Nothing on her face illustrated anything had been amiss.

"Just trying to test my hacking." she smiled. "Wanna watch?"

X gave an absent nod. "Sure."

He took a spot next to Aero, then scooted his chair closer to hers. His sense of comprehension went out the window when he saw just what Aero was working on. Lines of code, every so often indexed in, filled the screen repeatedly. Every so often he could pick up words that felt real -like 'parent' or 'override'- but others were completely gibberish. He could blink and one string of code could make sense, then with the next blink it was indescribable again.