there's a pizza in your tower with all this information.

'Greetings, primary user 'Maurice'.

I am contacting you on behalf of 'Ada'. She has barely managed to reach out on a group chat a monitor talking about being unavailable due to potentially being in a different 'timeline'. While she is still able to function, she is currently unable to get into contact with you. She has assured me she'll try everything in her ability to get back to you, but there's no ETA at the moment. That's all she has asked me to tell you, as of now.

-Sincerely, Bitz'.

... who the fuck was this. how did they know ada. how did they know his name. wait forget that one, his username on literally all things was ' mauricemetsfan72 '.

he was already living a fucking nightmare, panicking at the disappearance of his partner who managed literally EVERY aspect of his life by this point, trying to distract his son from the conspicuous absence of his mama and failing because much of a blunt asshole as he was, maurice was a terrible liar. now he was getting contacted by strangers who claimed to know ada. she'd said she had been all over, had many users before him ... was this one of them? or was this one of the people looking for her? fuck. FUCK. none of this made any sense!

and there was no ada here to remind him to calm down, and to help him work through a solution. all he knew how to do was make shit worse, how to ruin everything and make everyone miserable.

a hand was dragged over his face, several replies angrily typed out and deleted over the span of a few minutes. he had no idea what to do with this. his impulse was to distrust this stranger. curse them out, tell them to fuck off and kill themselves. fucking hell. god dammit.

he hissed out in frustration, typing out a message and sending it before he had time to obsess over it any more than he already had:

tell her im gonna find her.

... why was his room so dark? when eyes, heavy from deep sleep, gradually peeled back their lids, maurice was struck immediately by the absence of one striking detail.

no pink.

she. warned him, when she was doing system maintenance. she told him about it, so it wouldn't throw off his routine.

" ... ada? " he murmured, gaze immediately darting to the phone on his night stand. where he always put it. where she always was when he woke up. " ada. hey. "

a hand fumbled out for the device, almost knocking it to the floor like some clumsy fuckin' moron.

" ada. i'm talkin' to you. say somethin'. "

silence. this wasn't how it was supposed to be in the morning. she was supposed to say ' good morning, maurice! did you sleep well last night? ' like he didn't look like dogshit every morning and he groused some sarcastic answer in reply and she cheerfully suggested ways to improve his mood --

" ada. knock it off. you ain't in maintenance mode, say something. "

she was always there.

" ada. ADA. "

she was always there.

was embarrassing how much he tripped over his stupid blankets, stumbling his way into his computer room. the old desktop was fired up, the monitor eyed intensely as if it had personally offended him by forcing him to come over here to inspect it.

and again

no pink. just an empty folder. she wasn't there.

hadn't she told him she worried about the danger posed to him and his son by those that were keeping her android body hidden away? hadn't she told him she'd never had a home before him? this. was what she did. so many times, before him. she left. she found somewhere safer. she was ... just a stupid app on his phone, whatever, if she wanted to run then what the fuck did he care

CRACK

hadn't realized he was still holding his phone, pieces of the device jutting from his palms, glass embedded into skin. actually flinched a little, not because of the pain, but because he. was worried.

where would she come back to if his phone was gone?

she was always there.

Maurice and Junior, We haven't talked much...ever, but I know you just moved to the island and I wanted to offer a housewarming present. I know you were eyeing this crystal when you were in the shop last time, and it hasn't sold, so it's yours. And I thought a box would be a nice thing for the little one to decorate and put any treasures in that he finds around the island. I recommend warming the mulled wine before you have it, by the way. Happy Solstice, cousin. -- Noel

it was very wise of her to include the crystals, lest maurice give the thing a swift BOOT into the ocean out of paranoid worry for a package inexplicably appearing on his doorstep. the quartz cluster was held gently in his hands like a tiny and fragile bird, its facets admired by a look of genuine awe. so shiny. so pretty.

— cousin? cousin. cousin ... noel, noel. was the lady from the magic shop actually his cousin?? fuck. he was so outta the loop with the family tree, he had to look into it. for now, the gift was accepted and taken inside.