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L'étoile Noire ([personal profile] etoile_noire) wrote in [community profile] fandomweekly2019-01-25 01:36 am

[#004] Firewall Crash (Black Mirror)

Theme Prompt: #004 - Victory
Title: Firewall Crash
Fandom: Black Mirror; s4e01.
Rating/Warnings: Language, episode spoilers
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 626
Summary: Walton narrates the end of the episode


“I was thinking I should say all of that.”

I’d been apologizing out of my arse for the last 30 seconds or so. After all the time I’d spent in this pleasant fucking place, I knew well enough that recognition was what Bob wanted the most. Recognition, and a heartfelt boot-licking. He wanted someone - well, me - to say ‘hey, you’re a genius and I’m a piece of shit’.

And I would have meant it. Years ago. And. And you know, okay, so he is a genius, and I did take advantage of that, and that was sorta shitty. Really shitty. You know what, I’ll own it; I was a fuck.

But, but the point here is… I knew it would distract him. Bob would take his eyes off the display, he’d stop paying attention to the chase. I mean, we were adrift and he was closing as fast as that piece of shit shuttle could move. The game update was 98 or 99% complete, so the wormhole was closing. As far as our arsehole god was concerned, he’d won.

I'd finished repairing the engine’s power supply. Whatever Space Fleet writer decided that this was the best place for the access panel is a fuck, by the way. I mean, seriously? You can’t manually reroute power to it unless you’re inside the jet fader? Whatever.

I put my hand on the lever. Once I pulled it, we’d have power again and we’d shoot through that fucking wormhole and crash into the server firewall. I figured I’d have, at most, 30 seconds of unending, undying agony as I burned alive. Though, you know, there are worse ways to go.

I tipped my head back. “But you threw my son out of an airlock, so…” I trailed off and took a breath. I knew it was going to be my last one inside this virtual Hell and I wanted to be sure I had his full fucking attention before I finished. “...fuck you to death.”

I pulled the lever.

I cannot tell you how long it took. He had the game set so no one died unless he wanted them to. It might have been 20 seconds, might have been 20 years. Inside that pain, time stopped having any meaning whatsoever. But even as I screamed and writhed, God, I was fucking happy. Because we’d. fucking. won.

I didn’t realize we’d gone through the server firewall until I heard the game’s low health alarm sounding. I didn’t know then that we’d gone straight through the firewall. I didn’t know that it was only Bob’s Space Fleet mod that had been stripped off of us. I just knew it meant an end to the pain, and there was nothing sweeter than that alarm right then. Except maybe the darkness that came with it.

I hadn’t… actually counted on surviving that, you know? But funny thing about MMOs? You respawn. I’m telling you, I nearly shit myself when suddenly I was alive again, inside the little shithole that passes for my quarters, and staring at a message saying I’d lost 200 credits as a death penalty. I’d say I started laughing, but, uh… I might have gotten a little hysterical.

Anyway.

I made my way back to the bridge. I hadn’t even realized I was in the vanilla game suit or that the ship had the vanilla skin again. We found a spaceport to sort of ‘park’ at while we all got pissed. And that was… three? Yeah, three bottles of this green shit ago and I can tell, based on the look on your face, that you have no idea what I'm talking about. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go find an amenable NPC or three to fuck.

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