I'm so happy to be back with another commission from @catbeastaisha with more of my Run Moonware AU! This time, we're back with more of the lovely and mischievous Moon, and a strange new request from Edwin. Moon might know something about it. You dare to ask, and poke his buttons in the mean time.
———
You have an odd request from Edwin Murray. Your eccentric boss has no qualms with ordering you to comb through terminated employees’ emails and countless back logs of comings and goings from the entire Costume Manor and its many facilities, but this one was new.
He asked you to keep an eye out for Sleepy Moon.
Your heart dropped to your knees: he knows. A clammy dread slipped over your body and your stomach clenched as if you were about to get punched in the gut. Bracing. You were bracing to hear ‘you are fired’.
But he didn’t know. Not about you communicating with The Moon on the mysterious program that made its way onto the computer you use in the security office. He continues, specifically that you would report to him if you could find it. Otherwise, he would have to assume it was stolen and possibly sold to a third party or actively being used at some kid restaurant that one of his back-stabbing employees built up.
He seemed too on edge, too distracted, as if torn between standing in front of you and somewhere else entirely, to notice you shake back your composure. Off you went with this new instruction.
Not that he gave you anymore freedoms on the grounds. Just that you were to notify him immediately if you happen to spy one of his many costumed creations sprawling the floors and hanging against walls. Sleepy Moon. You’ve never heard of the name. Of course, you’re not too familiar with any of the mascots and funny animals dressed up as clowns or circle ring leaders, but you have someone you can ask.
Walking into the security office, you linger, staring out of the door through the hazardous halls of silicon faces and wide, too pleasant eyes that seemed to follow you everywhere you went. The door shut with a soft hydraulic hiss behind you.
The dusty office scent immediately flows to you, and you inhale it with the energy of having returned home. The computer boots up with a whirling whine before you have a chance to touch the power button on the monitor. The screen glows, coming to life with a quiet blitz of electricity before the pixels jump up and make up the home screen.
You settle down, putting your bag aside with little thought as you stare directly at the little face tucked away into the corner. The Moon. The program that has been with you since day one of your job.
His mischievous, pixelated smile takes the full curve of his half-illiminated face. One eye turns up impishly. The dialogue box pops up with a low beep.
| About time. You’re late.
“Not late,” you hold up one finger, grinning. “Edwin stopped me to chat. Can’t be late if it’s the boss keeping me from my desk.”
The Moon climbs a little higher into view. He stands upon the bottom bar, his arms at his sides. His head tilts slightly, like you’re a puzzle piece he hasn’t figured out how to put together—not without the box picture for reference.
“He didn’t fire me, if that’s what you’re so worried about.” You lean back in your seat, hands poised above the keyboard, toying with the thought of work. It does not sound like loads of fun at the moment.
The deadpan expression sends you a clear message, and then the text box.
| I wasn’t.
“Ouch.” You feign a mortal blow to your heart and clutch your chest. “You wouldn’t miss me? And I thought we were becoming work buddies.”
Somehow, the program masters an unimpressed gaze through the computer screen. You almost wish to touch the glass just to see if you can feel the lines of his stony expression.
| He wouldn’t fire you.
You pause. How does The Moon know? Or is he just saying that, just to make you drop the stupid subject. Probably the latter. He’s teasing you again in the way he always does.
Which reminds you—
“Don’t you want to know what Edwin said to me?” You arch an eyebrow and wiggles your fingers above the keyboard, heightening the already cheesy gestures of enticement.
The Moon suddenly looks on guard. His program glitches once before he takes up the whole screen in the way that turns most of it black and outlines his muscular upper body. The top of his star-dotted pants caught your eye for a moment, and you wonder what inspired his jester-like look.
“He mentioned something about Sleepy Moon,” you go on, leaning forward. Placing your elbows on the desk, you fix him with a scrutinizing look. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
A long, dotted line fills up the text box, before, as if in the manner of rolling one's eyes, the screen flips upon itself before several tabs pop up with files. All of them are titled in some form or the other with Sleepy Moon. One’s a blueprint, one's a detailed report of an accident occurring in Story Time Showroom, and another is a flyer advertising Sleepy Moon.
You snort before clapping a hand over your mouth.
The Moon, small and tucked into the corner, pierces you with an incredulous stare. Your laughter, however, cannot be dammed up, and the floor escapes in a fit of hysterics.
Sleepy Moon is a giant head, fitting with arms and legs in a Humpy Dumpy style of a suit. You find the cosmically tiny jester hat upon his head woefully improportionate to the rest of his body—head. Like a giant egg.
“That’s you?” you gasp between another bark of laughter.
| Obviously not.
You have to suck in a breath. Mining wiping away a tear, you scoot in a little closer, and indeed, that is not The Moon. They must have come from the same brainchild, but the schematics are for a costume—specifically one not fitted for animatronics. Only humans. Interesting.
“So, do you know where that costume is?” You lift a finger to tap the screen once. The pixelated figure of The Moon flickers for a moment, born seemingly out of irritation, like you tapped on the glass of his home. “Edwin wanted to know. He didn’t give a lot of details, but from my understanding, it’s missing.”
The silence of the program is as helpful as he always is, which is, not much. Perhaps you shouldn’t have wounded his ego so much, but that doesn’t change that you’re terribly curious.
And you have more questions than just what costumes may or may not be left in the manor. Ever since Sun exploded on you again, you have been mulling over his words.
“Is there one like Sun?” you ask casually, lowering your hand to hide how it clenches tightly. “Were you two a pair before…?”
You don’t know how to say it. You don’t even know what happened.
All the files vanish in a snap of deleted tabs. The Moon’s crescent head engulfs the screen, and you lean back half an itch, eyes widening. His green and dark gaze seems to spear you to your chair. You can’t move an itch.
| Nosy, aren’t you?
A pause, then typed underneath is a single word:
| Brat.
You open your mouth to defend yourself, but just as quickly, a new sentence is interjected, and you catch yourself mid-syllable.
| Want secrets? Let’s unscrew the cover and dig into those wires of yours.
You shudder. An unconscious gesture of your hands hugging your arms fills the program upon your work computer with brief delight flaring across his curved lunar face.
You are not a system that can have screws removed and hands interjected to fish out all of your tangled ends and burn out parts. The Moon seems to enjoy making you squirm—when you’ve pushed his buttons enough.
Fine. If that’s how he wants to play it. Him and The Sun. You can play ball.
“Go ahead, ask me anything. I’m an open book.” You hold out your arms. “Then you can tell me about what’s going on with you and The Sun.”
His head tilts, turning the slice of his head into a smiley face. If he buys it, he doesn’t show it. Maybe he thinks you're all talk, and that has gotten you into deep trouble before with the program. But not this time. You mean it.
| Someone waiting for you at home?
You blink once. That’s it?
“No one,” you say. The tiny apartment you have is nothing to write home about. “Come on, give me hard questions.”
The Moon seems to bob for a moment, pixels going up and down before he settles.
His grin stretches.
| Boyfriend?
You roll your eyes. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
| Ah ah. Answer the question.
Forced to play, you sigh and smack your lips once.
“No, last I checked.”
The computer seems to hum. The Moon almost does a little dance, shifting his limbs in the boxy space to a rhythm you can’t hear.
Just as quickly, he stops. His lone eye is upon you, and you can feel the absence of the other eye, the one The Sun possesses.
| Play later. You have work to do.
“Moon,” you warn.
His vile grin cuts through you, and you smack the desk once before his figure disappears off of the computer, dragging up your work in his wake.
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I have returned with another request from the sweet @catbeastaisha who let me once more get into my Run Moonware AU but with a focus on Sun.exe this time around! You've got a lot of questions, and worries, about the other program you encountered in the Admin Wing. Maybe this time will go better than the last. The Sun has to be lonely in there, right?
———
The Admin Wing is as dusty as ever. You quietly plug the Data Driver into the door, the codes sparking across the screen before unlocking with a mechanical clunk. The entrance slides open, and you step back into the eerily silent space.
A lone cupcake figurine, sitting upon a table with cartoonish skates and great buck teeth stares directly at you as you stride inward. Ignoring the bulbous eyes that seem to follow you across the room, you weave through the maze of desks and dusty computers. When’s the last time people were here? Not counting you. That was a week ago.
You’re not really supposed to be here. The Costume Manor is strictly under lock and key, and Edwin, your employer, is harsh about where and when you are allowed into certain areas. It’s often not a problem, considering that most of your work is confined to a computer in the security office.
But you have thought of nothing else but the glitching octaves of the program upon the computer in the tucked away office here. It haunts you in the quiet. The face, the one eye of The Sun stared at you as if you were vermin, a little bug that needed to be squashed and swept away.
Why hasn’t The Moon mentioned anything about his counterpart? He has to be part of the same game. You don’t know why another level of the mysterious program would exist on an entirely different computer, but you don’t know why a lot of things are going on here in the claustrophobic paranoia surrounding the facility. There are backstabbers and deserters in the emails you’ve scourged through on Edwin’s behalf. There are complaints and outright threats, but you’re not sure how office politics could destroy an entire company as if it were a house of cards and leave Edwin standing in the rumble.
Edwin wouldn’t like you being here. He’d probably fire you if he knew you weren’t just here to collect more emails from mailboxes—which you are—but there’s something more important.
The Sun must need someone, right? Does a program feel lonely? Sometimes you think The Moon might be, but then he pesters you and you think about shutting off the monitor. The threat alone is usually enough to get him back off so you can finish typing up your latest report.
Down the dusty hallway, you come to a secretary desk. On top of the counter is a robotic bear, painted with lipstick and a bow stuck between her ears. Mrs. Helpful labels the base of the animatronic along with a red button. You wonder when that replaced the lady working behind the desk. Probably not too long after Edwin started getting suspicious of everything and everyone.
You turn to the side door next to the main one. The larger frame leads to what you must assume is some bigwig office, but the smaller one holds a more secluded office. A window peeks inside, and the metallic door is, strangely, fortunately, unlocked.
Taking a deep breath, you clutch the Data Driver tight in your hand before knocking once. It rings metallically, awkwardly. You cringe at yourself before it slides up and opens with a heavy thunk.
You all but throw yourself over the threshold in case the program decides it doesn’t wish to deal with you and tries to shut the door on your head. Inhaling the dust already viciously swirling up as your feet kick motes up into the air, you endure a small twinge in your stomach before coming around the desk. The monitor sits heavy and gray.
When the screen comes into your view, it flickers to life with black, then green, before flashing and resting upon a familiar sight.
“Hi,” you say quietly.
The withered stare the pixelated figure delivers is as venomous as it is incredulous. The figure upon the screen is muscular, with a toned upper body and frilled pants. His head is a sun, half engulfed in shadows so that one sole eye digs into you with judgement.
Rule-breaker. You’re not allowed to be here. You will get in trouble.
You can hear the dry threat even through the digital text. You slowly place the Data Driver back onto a hook on your belt, and stand before the computer. Taking a moment, you find a dusty seat with one of the rolling wheels broken, and plop down before the monitor.
“That’s right, I’m back.” You offer a crooked smile. “But I am actually allowed here.”
You tap the small computer attached to the Data Driver. You’re not sure if the program can actually see it, but Moon usually catches your gestures. You think it’s a safe bet that The Sun can as well. However they do so.
The Sun doesn’t so much as blink at the news, and his smile seems to sharpen to a razor thin line. You try to not visibly gulp.
Authorization not recognized. This is now a security alert.
“Wait!” You throw up your hands. “Don’t do that. I don’t even think there is security in this building anymore.”
You’re positive, actually, but regardless, the threat of making any kind of alert could lead to Edwin discovering you messing with a program. He might assume the worst and simply fire you on the spot. You can’t have that.
The Sun tilts his head, as if he finds you pitifully amusing. Sunrays upon his crown twist in green pixels upon the screen, before the text slowly taps out a question.
Where is everyone?
You become still.
“You don’t know?”
The one eye upon the sun-like face narrows into a slit while his grin remains fixed in place, as if he’s bearing his teeth instead of smiling.
You look around the forgotten office, dusted in so many layers of untouched papers and work, that you wonder how he couldn’t have put it together already. Maybe he did. He just doesn’t understand how it all came to be.
You’re not entirely sure either.
“Edwin fired everyone—those who didn’t already walk out, that is.” You pause, not entirely sure what else to give. Should you be telling this kind of information to the program that was actively screaming at you before you fled his presence the last time? You’re not sure.
As if he just tasted poison, The Sun seems to snarl silently behind the screen. His pixelated figure glitches, split down the middle, before reconnecting.
You watch with a furrowed brow, your hand twitching upwards as if you could help the program. You don’t know anything about programming, about how to fix a computer. You just know how to type on one and pull up the files you need. Pretty useless, all things considered.
“Are you okay?”
Oh, I’m just peachy. You are not allowed here, nor do you have permission to access this programming, new friend.
“Why do you keep glitching?” You press on. You lean closer, as if you could delete the disease if you simply spotted the right icon to click. “Are you in pain?”
The smile becomes sharper upon The Sun’s face, as if a dagger held to the corner of his mouth.
You don’t listen very well, do you?
“I’m just trying to help. If there’s anything I can do, I’d like to know.”
The quiet hum of the computer picks up, as if musing out loud. The inexplicable expression of The Sun’s half-shadowed face is unrelenting upon you.
Why?
You’ve never thought about it before. It just doesn’t seem right, leaving The Sun in here, when you have The Moon with you.
“You’re here, all alone,” you gesture to the empty space that reeks of moth balls and isolation. “Maybe I could take you back with me on my Data Driver. The Moon might know how to fix you.”
The screen freezes, one blimp of a single frame with The Sun’s wide open eye. His smile is stone. A low, screeching decibel begins somewhere in the computer.
You stare. What did you say wrong this time?
He did this to me. He did this to us.
You push yourself to the edge of the rolling chair. It almost falls out from under you.
“The Moon?” you breathe.
The mischievous, sometimes terrifying program? You shake your head against the thought.
The computer fan whirls. Dust kicks up. You stare, and touch the screen. The Sun glitches, torn in half, one piece across the screen, and the other pressed against the other side. His entire form blinks and dissolves, barely keeping part of his form together.
A panicked flutter begins in your chest. Your hands helplessly clutch the monitor. Agonized, you watch his display fall apart on the inside.
You watch the screen glitch, flick on and off, then the computer gets one last spurt before it all falls silent. The screen glimmers, the blackness staring back at you. Your face is captured in agape fright.
“Sun? Sun,” you half-whisper, terrified.
The dialogue box pops up, intercut with glitching green pixels.
Get out.
The monitor shuts off with a quiet, final snap of power. You lower your hands slowly away, feeling the powdery dryness of dust upon your fingers.
Defeated, your heart hollowed out with dread, you pick yourself up from the chair and leave the office. The door slams shut behind you.
You don’t glance back to see the faint green glow of the computer turning back on.
The darling @catbeastaisha was so kind to let me dive into my Run Moonware AU with Moon.exe! You're the secretary of Edwin Murray, and really, the last employee of the Costume Manor. After an especially rough night, the program that has taken over your computer sees your sleep-depraved state and must simply do something about it.
———
Walking into Murray’s Costume Manor takes all of the strength left in your body. Last night was a horror, both in your dreams and due to the fact that you did not sleep a wink.
You stop at the restroom to quickly splash your face with cold water, but it comes out luke-warm and has a slightly sour scent, and ultimately, you leave without anything to refresh yourself with. The energy drink you carry in your hand is at least ice-cold and waiting for you to guzzle it down. You didn’t even bother with breakfast in your rush out the door this morning. Funny how you had all the time, lying awake, and you still nearly end up getting to work late.
Clutching the cold drink until the frigid edge bites into your palm, you step into the security office.
The computer whirls to life, the screen humming as it flickers on. The green glow causes your eyes to squint. It’s going to be a long day.
“Hey, Moon,” you mumble your morning greeting before plopping yourself down in the stiff, hard seat. You groan as you roll your shoulders and crank your neck side to side in some semblance of bracing to dig through more documents today.
Inhaling deeply, you squeeze your eyes shut and press your fingers into a steeple along your skull.
Just get through today. Do your work, clock out, and go home. That’s all you have to do. You can manage through the pressure building behind your eyeballs and the looming throb of a headache making its way to your temple.
With your pep talk out of the way, you straighten.
The computer sits at its default page, but in the corner, the pixelated figure of The Moon stares at you. His one eye is unblinking. His pose is the same, unmoving position he often keeps, but now it feels deliberate, focused. A small sound emits from the computer, a robotic decibel that makes you think of a person humming—if the noise went through a program and back out.
You reach for the mouse. A darkness flashes on the monitor before the screen is taken up by The Moon on full display, and his text box below him.
“Moon, I gotta get to work,” you exasperate.
Usually, The Moon’s antics would brighten a boring workload, but you find yourself with a short rope of patience today. You dig the heel of one hand into your eye socket before blinking away the stars that emerge from the pressure. Nope. The foggy mess in your head is still there.
Focusing your eyes takes a moment, but when the screen comes into view, there’s text waiting for you.
You’re sleepy…
You stare, and feel the ache of blood-shot eyes.
“I’m just peachy.” You tap on the mouse once, a sharp click echoing. “Let me get to work.”
The screen remains unmoving. The sprite seems to tilt his head slightly, and the one eye narrows incredulously.
You need a nap.
No, you can’t do this. You don’t have time to argue! If you don’t get yourself into gear, you’re going to be worthless all day long. The last thing you need is Edwin to surprise check your work and see that you have nothing to show for this shift, and then accuse you of trying to ruin him or something of the sort.
You’re not sure what kind of program The Moon is exactly, but he almost seems to balk in his green and black coding when you reach for your energy drink. You pop it open with a loud crack then proceed to drain a huge gulp down. The bubbling bites along your tongue. Your whole system shudders underneath the acidic surge entering your stomach. There, that’ll give you a few hours before you crash.
Setting the can down, you find The Moon staring at you incredulously.
“I don’t need nap time—I’m not a child.” You quickly cover your mouth with a hand to make the tangy burp a little more polite. “Come on, Moon, move. Let me open up some files.”
The whole screen wavers before text jumps up in almost erratic typing.
Naughty, naughty!
You throw your hands up in exasperation. “I need it! Edwin would fire me on the spot if he walked in on me sleeping on the job.”
The pixelated Moon stops the erratic waves, and almost in a quiet, delicate hum of the machine, sends a new line of text.
I will wake you before he finds you.
You blink slowly at the words, wondering if it’s an insomnia-induced hallucination. Does he mean that? It’s not a trick, is it? Maybe the program would love to get you fired so he can go back to… whatever he was doing before you downloaded him onto the computer.
You slowly shake your head.
“I’m sorry, Moon. I have to get something done today.”
The program continues to hold your work computer hostage, but his expression glitches for a moment. You wait with baited breath.
If you take a nap at noon, I will let you work.
At noon? You glance at your energy drink and back to the face seemingly peering through the glass directly at you. Maybe he is. You don’t want to ask.
A tired sigh works through your chest and shoulders. Pressing a hand to your face, you gulp down a deep breath before nodding and giving in.
“Fine. I’ll take a nap at noon.” You turn a scrutinizing look upon the monitor. “And you will wake me so I don’t sleep through the rest of my shift?”
You can trust me…
The ellipsis does not inspire confidence, but the flashing grin that The Moon gives tells you it’s another coy joke to make you squirm. He likes finding your buttons to press. More often than not, you return the favor.
Not this time, however, as the screen finally gives way to the desktop and The Moon’s sprite hangs quietly in the corner, flashing you one more grin before disappearing entirely.
A strange gift. He rarely leaves you be.
Taking the opportunity for what it is, you gulp down more of the energy drink and throw yourself to the tasks at hand. The morning passes by in a blurr. You hardly give yourself a moment to register the growing pulse of pain in your head nor the blurriness of your vision while staring at the screen for hours.
You just finish typing up another report on a round of documents—no sign of foul play—when exactly at the mark of 12:00, the computer screen is once more consumed by the pixelated version of The Moon.
Nap time.
With no strength nor caffeine left within you, there is little you can do but say, “Okay.”
You’re not quite sure how to do this. You push your chair back slightly as you gaze around the security office space. It’s seen better days. Dust collects on a small table shoved against the side wall and the floor hasn’t been vacuumed, littered with bits and crumbs, as well as various papers that should have been filed away.
You glance back to the screen. “I’ll just, uh, take that nap then.”
The face of the crescent moon watches you silently as you roll the chair back towards the door. Underneath the computer desk, there’s shadows and a dust-mote smell, but you find your jacket, and stuff it underneath your head in a makeshift pillow.
You tilt your head just enough to see the screen at a sharp angle, but enough to feel as if the program still has eyes on you.
The text box narrowly delivers a new message.
Why didn’t you sleep last night?
You look away. It sounds stupid now, when it’s daylight and you’re not half-crazed from your failed attempts to get your rest.
“It was nothing,” you say quietly. The zipper of your jacket presses into your skull, and you shift to get it out of the way.
When you return your gaze to the screen, you scoff.
Liar.
You try to conjure up a comeback, something that will sizzle upon delivery, but your tongue is wrapped up and your head is filled with cotton and painful throbs.
“It’s stupid,” you rephrase. “It was just nightmares.”
You stare anywhere but at the computer. Softer still, you breathe out. Your heart is heavy in your chest.
“It’s those stupid costumes. I hate them,” you bare your teeth. “They look horrendous and they chase me in my dreams. They always find me. I try to hide, and sometimes, I’m running towards the security office and every time I try to open the door, it locks, and I’m crying and then they get me.”
You omit that you’re crying for The Moon in those nightmares.
“I woke up. I couldn’t go back to sleep.”
You sigh.
“Stupid, right?”
The silence lays heavy. You don’t bother looking up at the monitor. You don’t want to see how he’s making fun of you for acting like a child—even worse than a child, being afraid of costumes built to entertain children.
You curl up tightly, and let your heavy head rest. Your eyelids immediately slide closed. In the dusty air and the press of your pulse against your temple, you hear a soft, robotic droning, playing a few notes. Like a hum.
If Moon.exe and Sun.exe come in contact on the same computer, would they (dragon ball z style) fuse into an Eclipse.exe? XD
Im very entertained by your bits on this little au Naff <3
Those two are not looking to hop onto the same computer together. The secretary is going to learn more about Moon.exe and Sun.exe and find that they are not what you would call friends.
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Love your run moonware AU, I also had an idea for it. Moon would definitely infect the data driver in given the chance, but would he do anything bad with this power? 🤔
I see Moon as the type to prank us rather than do anything straight up evil. I think he would mess with us by making a door not open, and then finally, after we go get a coworker to help, he lets us open the door first try. Catch my idea, or am I too tired to write properly?
Oh, absolutely. He could jump into that bad boy if the secretary dared to let him, but that hasn't happened yet. He would absolutely be a monster with such power.
The only thing is that there are no coworkers at the facility. Edwin has fired everyone else (or watched them walk out on their own). Which means you're on your own in the Costume Manor. Mostly. Edwin pops in now and then but for the time being it's a ghost town and that's unsettling for you. If it weren't for The Moon as some companionship in the security office, you'd have gone crazy.
But he would pull stunts like shutting a door in your face and make you ask nicely for him to open it. The Moon is full of mischief. You just don't know how far that goes or if there's any lethal intent hiding in that programming of his.
I love your ideas for Run Moonware so much, I’m hooked already with only one post :D (I’m the anon who asked if you’d write about it the other day)
I love your characterisation for Moon already, I love the mystery about him as this new form, but the familiarity of being a little bastard all the same. Do you have anything in mind for Sun in this story, or are you thinking of keeping this a Moon-fic? I understand it’s more difficult exploring where Sunny could fit in the world there
Really looking forward to seeing more posts about your ideas!! 💛💛
Ah, thank you!! I'm glad you'd asked <3
I had to think about it. It would make sense to keep it strictly Moon-centric, but I do wonder what a program of The Sun would be like. Not as the symbol for Fiona in Moon.exe, but in the same vein as The Moon where he's programed and part of a mysterious game when the secretary first meets him.
Edwin gave you a Data Driver. He told you there are mailboxes scattered around the facility that he needs you to access and take all the messages from. More of the same deal. Yeah, same deal.
Edwin warns you that your clearance is very low-level. For now, you'll go where he directs you and not one step more. You're not sure what that means, but you say "Yes, sir" and that seems to let him return to whatever he usually does when he skulks back to his house on the hill. You're not even sure how he seems to slip back and forth between the facility and his home, but you don't ask questions because that usually agitates Edwin.
The Data Driver's small computer sits heavy on your side. The cord is long and curls just below the hefty tool. As you traverse through the facility, you wander through all the costumes sticked together with great big grins and hulking presences that seem to crowd you even as you take a wide path around them.
It's practically abandoned. Half of the lights barely flicker on when you enter a new room and there is not a soul in sight. But that's a good thing. You tell yourself over and over that it's only you, so there's nothing to fear.
It's too bad The Moon can't follow you from the computer in the security office. You thought about asking him if he could throw himself into the Data Driver, but you always bite your tongue before making such a proposal. It feels... like too much. Like he'll say no and for some reason, you'll get all twisted about it.
It wouldn't be much help on the silent device anyways. He would probably find more ways to mess with you—refusing to let open doors or declaring that you're in the wrong place. You could already see the furious half pleas and half insults you'd sling until he'd open it up.
You come upon the Admin Wing. The symbols on the screen shift, temporary granting you access as you step into the office space shaped by desks and couches, and lots, and lots of cupcake figurines. They don't move nor make sounds, but you don't like their dull, lifeless eyes. They seem to shift when you look away, but you can never catch the things in the act.
So, you ignore it and step along, quick to find a mailbox with the envelope symbol upon it, and jam the thing in. The seconds drag on, and you anxiously turn and look around you.
It's all so lifeless. What happened to this place? Could so much betrayal by employees really bring a company to its knees like this?
The download finishes, and you work your way towards the Executive Suite. There's one more mailbox. That's what Edwin said. Right by the desk before you walk into his office.
It's just a big odd that you have to crawl through a vent in order to reach it, but at least it's not a disembodied program locking you in your workspace, right?
Once in the office, you snag the mailboxes, and sigh with a slightly aching back at the open vent again. Can't the door just open? You peer at the computer monitor stuffed upon the desk. There are a few papers, dusty and forgotten, scattered around the surface. There's that big yellow chicken on it. Chica. The drawings are cute—unlike so much else in this place.
You bend down to flick the monitor on. Maybe it'll give you some code or access and let you unlock the door. You don't feel like crawling through the creaking, dust mote speckled vents again.
It flickers to life not unlike a zombie tearing up through dirt and grass, slowly crawling back to join the land of the living. With a whirl and groan from the computer, the screen burns bright green before a screeching, high pitch decimal emits from the machine.
You startle backwards, hands rising to clap over your ears. Flashing and disconnected lines and numbers erupt in black and green, and you catch one sensical line in the chaos reading Sun.exe before it stops.
In a large, screaming font, you read:
DON'T GO DON'T GO DON'T GO
The computer stalls. As if a coughing breath, the fans of the computer punch faster, and you find a strangely familiar figure centered upon the screen.
Your lips part slowly. The program's head is round, but shadowed, concealing one eye in black pixels while a crown of sharp spikes rings about it. Its muscular figure is unmistakable with toned arms and a straightforward and unreadable expression. It stares deeply into you with its one-eyed gaze—as if the opposite piece to the puzzle that is The Moon.
You're not—
The text tops and corrects itself.
You do not have permission to access my program. Rule-breaker.
You glance around yourself, as if looking for help. You don't find any. "I just wanted to get out of here, through the door."
The program stares without blinking. Yet, you feel a blade-like disdain falling upon you, like an executioner's sword.
A cold shiver crawls down your back.
"I didn't know there was another game," you give awkwardly. "Are you a character on another level? Are you called The Sun?"
New friend, I will alert security to your presence if you don't leave.
The smile on the program tilts. The degree becomes lethal, as thin as a razor blade.
Or I'll put you in time out.
You cross your arms. In a defiant, almost taunt like utterance, you say "You're not being very helpful. Just open the door and I'll get out of your way."
The program is motionless, like a mannequin, like a doll with one, glassy eye. His smile looks down on you from far, far above.
You look back, uncomfortably pressing your fingers into the flesh of your arms before you resign yourself to another less than stellar version of the game you encountered. Curiously, you linger for a moment, wondering if he's connected to other things like The Moon is. Could The Sun join the lunar side on your computer?
Not that you would dare ask him now.
"Can you open the door?" you ask, a bit softer this time.
The program upturns it's one eye as if it finds you utterly adorable in your stupidity.
This program is off limitsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Lines begin running up and down the black space on either side of The Sun. Binary numbers overlapping and beginning to crowd the screen. The 's' continues, bleeding off screen as a groan arises from the computer. You take one step forward, arms raised in alarm as if to reach for The Sun.
"What's wrong? What's happening? Can I help?"
Another high pitch audio screech admits from the device. You flinch back. The door slides open with a heavy thunk, dust swirling in the snap motion.
The Sun dissolves in the background, glitching in and out of view, appearing before being half of his pixels are ripped a parted, and the text box stretches across the screen.
GET OUT!
You bolt away, nearly knocking against the door frame before it seals up behind you with an angry slap of metal. You turn back briefly to catch the glow of green and black flashing in agonized sequences. Clutching the Data Driver tight to your chest, you breathlessly scurry out of the Admin Wing.
The ringing in your ears goes with you, echoing the haunting, almost robotic scream of The Sun.
