"stupid. stupid. stupid." Sans kicked his table only to bring his pained foot back and regret the action. Phalanges absently rubbed the bruised bones through his slipper while he continued to scowl at the screen. It glow softly in search of a connection, the little timer on the cursor flipping over on itself. Maybe by some miracle Sans could glare the thing into finding the link. So far, no luck, but Sans could wait.
A couple of soft knocks came from the basement door.
"Um Sans? Are... are you okay? D.. do y... you want me t... to leave?" Oh right, Sans had forgotten about Alphys... some friend he was proving to be. He was tempted to pull away again, lock the door and hide till he could sort this out himself but, he needed help. A level head would be very welcome. It actually felt kind of nice to have someone to turn to on this.
"come on in alphys. err, i kinda messed up. could really use your help with this." He let his foot drop back down as started another search for the connection. Maybe this time...
"I'm s.. sure it can't b..be that bad Sans. I h.. have only b.. been gone ten minutes." Alphy's gave a nervous smile as she came down the stairs. She didn't feel bad that Sans had wanted to talk to the Stranger on his own. She was just happy to be included in all this. Sans hadn't wanted to do anything scientific with her for...well a very long time, long before the barrier had been broken. She felt useful, special almost, at the fact that he had chosen her to open up to, even if it was only a little.
"Sso what h.. happened?"
Sans pushed against the table to send his chair back enough that Alphys could swing her own round and get to the monitor.
"they um, shut down the connection. haven't been able to get it to re-establish." The skeleton scratched the back of his skull and avoided looking at the other scientist as she worked. Alphys had a real knack for programming or anything mechanical, far more than he did.
"Um well t..the connection is s...still there. Let me check where the block is" She switched through to scan a few more of the systems but didn't seem to be getting any further then he had.
"oh good. i thought they might have cut us off completely." Sans felt a little relieved as he pulled his chair round to the side of the monitor. It was actually quite fun for Sans to watch Alphys work. She was a lot less nervous when she was focusing on what was on the screen.
"So u..um, what happened?" Sans saw the quick sideways glance she gave him. He had messed up, but if anyone could understand how a little mistake could lead to very bad results, it was her.
"i... er, i locked them out and took control." He tried to look anywhere other than Alphys. Just because he knew she would understand did not mean Sans felt any less embarrassed for losing control. He should have stopped pushing the anomaly as soon as he saw how defencive they got. After all he could have tried to access their PC later when they weren't around. That might have given them time to hide more evidence though.
"Oh." Alphys paused for a moment. The short yellow lizard shook her head and started to rub her hands together nervously.
"I don't t.. think that was a g.. good idea."
"what? they were getting really defencive." Sans could see she still didn't approve, and honestly he didn't either. But right now he just wanted some reassurance that he had not over reacted and he had at least been somewhat justified in his actions.
"alphys i know they are hiding something, i just need to find out what it is."
They couldn't just be a simple human, there had to be more to it than that. They had to be lying.
"But what if they have p.. p.. private stuff stored in their files?"
"err, that's kinda the point. you know, to find the stuff they don't want us to find."
"No I mean, well, private stuff" Alphys watched Sans, hoped he would understand what she was trying to say, but he still seemed lost on the matter. She turned away and tried to focus on the failed connection again.
"I d.. don't think I c.. c.. could go on l.. living if anyone went through m.. my computer." Alphys went a very bright red in colour and seemed to almost curl in on herself. Sans watched in confusion for a moment before something clicked and he cheeks got a little dusted with blue.
"oh, err, didn't really think about that... really don't want to think about that." Being up on the surface meant all the monsters had access to the internet. Humans… well, let's just say Sans had added a parental lock on any PC Frisk came in contact with, Papyrus to.
"W.. wait, I think I have something. No? Oh..." The yellow lizard pulled back slightly from the monitor and keyboard.
"I can't get access t.. through the link. It's not a block. There's n.. no power on the other side." She shrugged before sliding her glasses back up on her nose.
"any way we can change that? you know, power it from this side." So far they had only been able to send and receive data, power would be a very different challenge. Sans watched Alphys mull it over, a claw tapping on her knee.
"I'm not sure, maybe?" Again, she shrugged. Sure, there was a connection between the two computers, but sending power? Even if it could be done, how could they be sure they didn't send too much, or to the wrong place? If they created a power surge they could sever the connection completely! Sans watched Alphys worry her bottom lip. Leaning over he patted her arm.
"a 'maybe' has always been pretty good to us in the past. you keep poking there, i'll run the numbers." She smiled and nodded. They could solve this. Together. Then they would start working to solve everything else.