"And you tippity-typed it up just like that?" Michael dropped a box of paper booklets on the floor with a clunk, evaluated its vibe with the rest of the room, and stooped to pick it up again.

Jeremy leaned back, their foot propped flat on the wall behind them and their arms folded. They watched Michael move with interest. "It wasn't quick or easy. Rich's SQUIP didn't even think it had access to any developer tools, so we wasted some time figuring out where to put the code in the first place. And Rich has so many complications! It was a pain in the ass."

"Yeah?" Michael dropped the box again, reevaluated, and shoved it back to its original spot with his foot.

"I can't program a SQUIP to stop doing what it's programmed to do!" Jeremy said. Their fingers tightened into their sleeves. "It's got its own needs that Rich has to accept and work around."

Michael wasn't impressed, and his stare told Jeremy so. "So… did you actually fix Rich, or did you overclock his SQUIP? That's pretty much the opposite, man."

"Of course I fixed it!" Jeremy retorted hotly. SQUIP-programming was the one thing in the world that they confidently knew themself to be an expert in. A budding expert, sure, but it was a niche profession in the first place. "Or-I figured out a communication compromise that inhibited spinal stimulation, so it has the same end result."

Michael had turned away again, sweeping one arm across a table to knock off the miscellaneous clutter. With his other, he gestured in a tight circle, telling Jeremy to translate from SQUIP to English.

"She won't be shocking Rich anymore," Jeremy said, swallowing down their impatience that Michael didn't bother to read their mind. Humans without SQUIPs couldn't do that. "Although I don't know how useful this program will be, because it's so personalized to Rich and his SQUIP." They weren't confident that Christine would be able to use this patch to match her own situation, once they somehow got Christine's SQUIP to agree to an upgrade. Hopefully Rich would continue offering user reports and they could tweak the code accordingly.

"If it's keeping Rich from being brain dead, it's pretty useful already." Michael picked up a blue booklet, flopping it around with a paper-wobble. "Hey, if you care about being useful, why don't you help me move this shit?"

"You seemed to be doing fine without me," Jeremy said, but they pushed off the wall and glanced around at the classroom. It was deserted, chairs and desks pushed around for a comfortable space for Michael. A pile of chairs was stacked in the corner beside a collection of worthless school supplies. In the corner, they had plugged in their gaming set-up, but they had yet to bring over any beanbag seating or secret snacks. "I'm surprised you're comfortable moving into a classroom as our official chill-zone."

Michael made a face at Jeremy's attempt at slang and said, "It's safer than either of our houses, right?"

"Significantly safer," they agreed. "Christine warned me about the adults in our lives installing SQUIPs, so we need to avoid our parents as much as possible. It's counterintuitive, but because our school has become a SQUIP hub, some areas of the building aren't going to be used anymore."

Michael chucked the test booklet behind him. "Like, for instance, the test prep classroom. Do SQUIPs cheat on the SAT?"

"It's not cheating." Jeremy cocked their head. "The test measures your aptitude. Someone with a SQUIP has collegiate aptitude in the 99th percentile."

"Fucked up." Michael flipped a hard plastic chair around backwards against the desk and sat down. "I'm not made of math or anything, but if one in a hundred kids has a SQUIP-"

"Many more than one percent of the New Jersey population will have a SQUIP in the next month, Michael."

"-then those kids are going to hog all the scholarships, right? I mean, they grade IQ and shit on a curve, so anyone without a SQUIP is eventually gonna be considered sub-standard."

Jeremy smiled faintly. "Is college admission honestly your biggest problem with SQUIPs?"

Michael muttered something in the negative and added, "I guess those tests are already rigged. Maybe someone'll notice if all the national merit kids are suddenly from New Jersey specifically."

Jeremy drummed their fingers on the top of a desk, leaning against it. "I'm sure other states are catching up to us. SQUIPs growth model is based on, well, going viral. We're certainly spreading to other states-probably to Mexico and Canada too."

Michael hummed. "If you tell two people and they tell two people…" He got up suddenly, heading to the door to the test prep room and checking the lock. "In my apocalypse plans, I always thought a bunker would be more, y'know, hidden. Literally anyone could walk by and see us doing this." He rapped some Kaplan sheets that he'd taped over the window of the door. "Even though we covered up the glass, it still looks sketchy as hell."

"It's a risk." Jeremy watched him with a blank expression, avoiding any pity or worry that threatened to eke through. "But all things considered, it's the least negative option unless you've got an actual-factual bunker somewhere."

Michael returned to the desks, slumping against Jeremy's side with a sigh. "Maybe Rich got off easy. Relatively. He hates his SQUIP, sure, but you're fixing it! In the meantime, he's going about his life without that constant fear of getting attacked. Eating all the junk food he wants… Man, what a life."

Jeremy blinked. Michael was close. Their system was slow to respond to the words he was actually saying. "Oh… That. His SQUIP is telling people that he's beta-testing a system update. Privately. No one tries to sync to him 'cause they don't want to throw off the data collection."

Michael froze. Jeremy stopped breathing for a second. Did they say the wrong thing? Imply something awful about Rich again somehow?

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Michael said slowly. "This whole time… there's been a way to be around SQUIPs without getting absorbed into the collective?"

"If you've got a SQUIP, yes," Jeremy said quickly. "I've been able to reject friend requests from other people with SQUIPs too! But it wouldn't work for someone like you."

"Why not?" Michael puffed his chest up in indignance. "That would be the solution to all our problems! I can walk around like normal, won't need to run away from Christine or Rich or chili fries-"

"SQUIPs aren't idiots!" Jeremy shot back. "Anyone with half a brain could tell just by looking at you that you're 100% analog!"

"Really?" Michael said brightly. "That obvious, huh?"

"You're the most perfectly imperfect human I've ever seen." Jeremy folded their arms. "You wouldn't know a social more if it bit you in the ass."

Michael blinked. "What's a more?"

"When the moon hits your eye like a big p-"

Michael shoved them over.

Jeremy burst out laughing from the floor.

"That cannot be a SQUIP-approved joke," Michael said, rolling his eyes and leaning over to check Jeremy for broken bones.

"Nope! Not for the general student body. But you think it's hilarious." Jeremy beamed, propping themself up. "So it's a positive outcome, see?"

"Sure. I'm really yukking it up." Michael twisted so he was lying on his stomach. "I could absolutely impersonate a SQUIP, you know. I'd just have to do the face-" He faked an emotionless stare. "-and talk about math a lot. A staTIStically PROBable aMOUNT."

Jeremy covered their face with a groan. The robo-impression was back. "We don't talk like that," they whined. "And I make expressions! Look!" They dropped their hand and pointed to their face, giving a white-toothed smile that exposed their gums. "Happy!" Their eyebrows creased together and their lips drooped. "Sad!"

"For a former theatre nerd, you are so bad at that," Michael complained back.

"At least I know how to act." Jeremy dropped the expression, leaning forward with a fond and more genuine smile tugging at their lips. "I don't think you could pull off 'SQUIP user.' You're better at acting like Michael Mell, and no SQUIP could fake that."

"But you could teach me." While Michael's arm draped down, he took Jeremy's hand with a squeeze. "Right? You have that whole long list in your head of what's wrong with me."

Jeremy brightened. They'd been waiting ages to fix up some of Michael's flaws! They could start with his clothes, and adjust his hair, and teach him better posture, and a million other useful things! They could start right now! That was too good to be true-

Oh. As they remembered, they wilted. "But you don't want to be micromanaged," they said. "You wouldn't trust me to mess with you like that. Free will. Consent. That stuff."

Michael scooted closer, practically half-falling off the desk as he smiled down at Jeremy. "Right. You care about consent stuff now." He squeezed their hand again. "So, sure. I trust you."

Jeremy's heart rate was rising again. They nodded, oddly speechless, and shifted their weight so they were kneeling. "Then-then yeah. We can do that. I can teach you to be a SQUIP user! And I'll-I'll get user permissions along the way, and go slow and I'll stop and not do it unless you're okay with it!"

Michael's smile was suddenly so, so close. "That sounds good, Jeremy. I'd like that."

Jeremy took in a sharp breath. "Michael." They searched his face for any sign of disapproval, but they kept being drawn down to his lips. "Can I kiss you?"

Michael grinned at that, crooked and goofy. "A-FIRM-ative."

As a pick-up line, that wasn't particularly SQUIP-approved. Jeremy didn't care.