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Chapter 9
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“Your friends just get better and better.” Winger whispered in Cordax’s direction.
“‘Friend’ is a bit of a stretch with this one.” Cordax replied. “I’ve known him for, like, a couple hours maybe?”
“Oh, come on!” The cloud of specks flew about the room. “Not one question as to how I’m doing? No speculation as to how I survived? Nobody? Surely somebody cares about me, right?”
“Shut up waffle house nobody asked you.” The specks dismissed the tentatively raised hand of the Maestro de Gofres. “OKay, so nobody cares about poor Wild. Cool, great, fantastic. No tears shed over me fighting Monopoly, or getting dogpiled by Cordax’s extended family, or getting blown up in a nuclear reactor and dying. It’s fine, it’s just Wild, why should we care about him?” The cloud circled above the party, as if looking at the ceiling in dismay. “Surely he can’t feel pain, he’s just an insignificant speck, he’s nothing important, why bother considering how HE feels about getting nuked?”
“Sorry, he gets like this.” Gofers murmured behind his bony hand. “Look, can you cry yourself to sleep after we entertain our guests? They kind of need help-”
“Wait, you got nuked??” Cordax stared, the cloud stopping its spiral of despair and floating back down. “I had no idea-”
“Of course you wouldn’t, cheese face, you only ruined everything by unlocking that stupid skeleton and destroying the laws of physics, ok thanks a lot Cordax, some help you were-”
“Excuse me, I was being extremely traumatized!” Cordax sunk his head back into his collar. “Besides, Monopoly betrayed everyone, so why does it even matter what happened? The whole factory’s been destroyed regardless of what occurred in it.”
“Oh come on, that dome was meant to handle nuclear blasts, and there’s no way it was that structurally unsound-”
“Renner’s Dreamer teleported it away.” Winger sat down on the dingy couch. “I assume it got taken off-planet. Gosh, how is anything I’m saying a remotely normal thing? I-” He broke out a sputtering chuckle. “I’m, I’m talking to the contents of a neon sign in a sewer system while invincible skeletons are busy fighting THE SUN.”
“I just- I can’t- I really can’t.” Winger rested his arms on his knees and gripped the sides of his helmet, getting a fantastic view of the floor. “Gosh, I’ve been trying so hard to be the normal one here, not that it’s hard with you freaks setting the bar so low-”
“Heyyy.” Cordax scowled. “Just because I’m short-”
“Give midlife crisis here a minute, would you?” The wild cloud flew down between Winger and Cordax. “Now I’ve simply got to get caught up to speed on what’s been going on, and you seem like the perfect witness of events to do that.” It ushered Cordax into some dark hallway, and before long he could be heard making sound effects to describe the events that transpired.
“Is he gone?” Another voice spoke. Winger, who was busy trying not to lose his will to live, gave in to his good-natured instinct to try and help someone who may possibly be in need. A small orange light could be seen flashing in the corner of the room, coming from a defunct projector which appeared to have been modified with replacement parts from another model.
“The cloud’s gone, yes.” Gofers replied, tentatively holding out a hand for Racie to lean on, who was trying to make it clear she didn’t want to.
“I was referring to him.” The orange light glowed and projected a small hologram into the room, which shifted in form for a moment before portraying an emaciated corpse. It had barely any muscle, withered grey skin, a shock of white hair plastered to its scalp, and was so small it made Cordax look big. A blue child’s coat was wrapped snugly around the body, and remained the only portion unchanged by the sudden shift in visuals which de-aged the corpse back into what it presumably would have been.
Winger stared at the facsimile of a person which the AI had constructed, with skin akin to Cordax’s - artificial, plastic-like and occasionally reflective. The cartoonish face it protected was now drowning in waves of white hair, and the small coat was a much more snug fit than it had been before.
“And???”
“…And… What?”
“Dude, you can’t just reconstruct a dead body in front of everyone here and then pretend the conversation continues.” Winger gestured at the hologram in desperation. “Did you have a point to this?”
“Uhh,” The AI’s hologram looked about in vaguely veiled concern. “Honestly, I didn’t really think about the social aspect of it until just now, uh. Sorry, lemme start this over.” The hologram disappeared and reappeared as the decayed cadaver. “Hi, nice to meet you, what’s your name?”
“Hey uhh,” The cloud of wild sparks reappeared suddenly from the darkness. “cheese face just fell down the hole. Uh, I can’t carry him up as I am, so if someone could assist that would be dandy, and oh my gosh dude I thought I told you to stop using the corpse version of that.”
“But you said recognizability was key to rebuilding a friendly relationship once lost but now restored!” The AI protested.
“I also said if you reintroduce yourself to velveeta peepers as a rotting husk maybe he wouldn’t be so inclined to resume that friendship, now would he?” the wild cloud replied. “Now get your rears in gear; I thought I heard noises down there.”
“Let’s move.” Winger sighed, forcing himself up off the couch and motioning the Maestro de Gofres to follow. Racie had no means to keep up, and AI had no means to move whatsoever, so the party advanced into the darkness without either of them.
There was silence for a time.
“So should I use the corpse or…”
