[fanfiction] human/cyborg relations (section 2)
365 Gay Sharks
Day 138, Word Count: 8820
Theme: May; Chain Reactions
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The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.
- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
There are days when Dustin, Chris, and Mark actually get work done. There are days when they're out in the field, catching bad guys and making America safer for everyone, but currently they're not doing any of those things. Currently, Mark is running system diagnostics and paying only a minimal amount of attention to Dustin and Chris. Dustin is being . . . Dustin. From what Mark can tell, he's badgering Chris about what his job description is. No one said that Dustin was actually smart or anything.
Dustin peers at Chris, "Like, what's your actual job? The only thing I ever see you do is boss us around."
In the grand scheme of things, Eduardo is not sure that he will ever do anything more crazy than infiltrating the CIA and stealing a top-secret program out from under their noses. He's not actually even sure why he agreed to Sean's crazy plan, but he did and now they're a couple of blocks away and Eduardo is dressed up in a suit with the proper access cards and all kinds of other stuff that he is pretty sure was illegally obtained by Sean . . . somehow. Eduardo doesn't want to know how Sean got it, and he doesn't care. He takes deep breath, and slips the earpiece in.
Eduardo looks over at Sean, "This is crazy."
Chris gives Dustin that look he has perfected, the one that says I'm going to pretend you're not an idiot and I don't understand how you ever got hired by the CIA all at once.
Eduardo walks into the CIA building and tries to look like he belongs there, which is actually surprisingly easy because most of the people in the building are otherwise occupied and not paying too much attention to him.
"I'm your boss, you idiot."
He flashes his security pass to a guard.
"Technically," Mark looks up from his computer, "the president is our boss."
While Eduardo is riding up in the elevator, he pulls up the map of the building in his optics.
Dustin rolls his eyes, "I know that, Chris. I meant, like. What are you technically called?"
The elevator gives a cheerful ding! when Eduardo reaches the correct level, and he steps out.
"I can't believe you don't know this. I'm your handler, Dustin. I make sure you don't pose a threat to the government." Mark opens his mouth, and Chris cuts him off. "Unless your name is Mark Zuckerberg, in which case I make sure you don't pose more of a threat to the government and handle various details of your personal life because you exist solely to make my life difficult."
Eduardo exits the elevator, taking a moment to survey where he actually is before he heads toward the terminal that Sean has determined is probably the easiest point to hack into the systems from. He passes by a lot of people, none of whom seem to recognize that he doesn't actually belong in the building. Personally, Eduardo thinks that says a lot about the sophistication of their security measures.
Mark rolls his eyes and touches his forehead to the computer's screen again. Dustin hits Mark in the head with a paper ball and Mark resurfaces, turning to glare at Dustin.
The terminal is actually fairly easy to locate once Eduardo finally figures out how to read the stupid optic map, walk, and not run into things all at the same time. It's harder than it sounds.
"You can't make the computer do all the work, Mark. That's not what you're being paid for."
Once he's at the terminal, Eduardo takes a deep breath. Then, he touches his fingertips to the console and integrates with it.
"Yes it is," Mark turns back to his computer, "I'm being paid to not hack the Pentagon by accident again."
The computer asks him to identify himself once he's given credentials and Eduardo tells it: Hi, I'm Eduardo Saverin.
Dustin sighs loudly, "I still don't think it's fair that all you have to do is ask nicely and the computer just does what you want. The rest of us have to do actual work."
Once he's identified himself, the computer seems to leave him to his own devices, only taking a cursory interest in what he's doing poking around in the system.
"It's not my fault the computers don't like you, Dustin."
It doesn't actually take that long to locate the Facebook program, thankfully.
Chris rolls his eyes, "Both of you idiots should get back to work."
Quickly, Eduardo downloads the program into his memory banks.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Mark touches his forehead to his computer again and asks it if anything has changed in the last couple of minutes.
Thanking the system for letting him muck around in it, Eduardo resurfaces. He shakes off the machine and then heads back out of the building the same way he came in.
Oh, Mark's computer cheerfully says, A cyborg named Eduardo Saverin accessed Facebook and downloaded the program files into his memory banks.
And that's it. Eduardo Saverin, twenty-two, has stolen the government's top-secret facial recognition program with a very minimal amount of effort.
Mark swears.
Eduardo calls Sean.
"Shit. Shit"
"Did you get it?"
Dustin glances over, "Something wrong, Mark?"
"Yeah. Are you going to meet up with me now?"
"It's nothing," Mark grabs his jacket, "I'll see you guys tomorrow, okay? I've got to fix a bug."
"Nah, I have some stuff to do. I'll meet you tomorrow afternoon. It's not going anywhere."
Chris waves, "See you tomorrow, Mark."
"Okay. See you tomorrow then, Sean."
The city's central computer told you? R2D2, you know better than to trust a strange computer!
- C3PO
The computer told Mark that Eduardo Saverin was a cyborg, so Mark grabs Eduardo's currently listed address from the registered cyborgs database while he's walking out of the building. From there, it takes Mark about thirty seconds to find Eduardo Saverin's Facebook page-which tells him that Eduardo Saverin is interested in men, women and is single and is headed to a club. Let's hope my hangover isn't too bad tomorrow., which is all useful information and using all of that, Mark forms a plan of attack for controlling the situation. On his way home, though, he stops by an ATM and grabs Eduardo's bank information just in case. It's never a bad thing to have someone's bank information.
By the time Eduardo gets home after calling Sean, it's just past six o'clock on a Friday and Eduardo doesn't actually have anything to do until he meets up with Sean tomorrow so he decides to say fuck it to everything and go to a club. He just stole something from the government, he can spend a night dancing and maybe pick someone up. As some kind of ironic gesture or whatever, Eduardo sends in the Facebook status update: Eduardo Saverin is headed to a club. Let's hope my hangover isn't too bad tomorrow. He hops in the shower and starts mentally shuffling through the things in his wardrobe for something appropriate while he's lathering up. The night is still young, and Eduardo is going to rock it.
The club is loud, bass like a secondary heartbeat. It's not really the kind of place Mark prefers, mostly because everything is tinged with electric blue and he's not quite sure what's signal line and what's actual lighting at first. Not that being able to see the signal lines is particularly important at the moment, but it would probably make finding Eduardo Saverin easier. Mark takes a sip of his beer and brings up the signal lines again, trying to block out the mood lighting. There's different colors of blue for different things, and Mark sorts through them until he's located the cyborgs in the mass of people on the dancefloor. The brighter they are, the more cyberkinetics they have installed and Mark's pretty much only getting normal levels of brightness. Eduardo Saverin is something like 70% cyberkinetic, which Mark thinks would mean that he lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. There's nothing like that in the-no.
By the bar there's an almost blinding cyberkinetic blue, and Mark is drawn to it like a hipster to a Mac. Dismissing the signal lines, Mark finishes his beer before winding through the crowd until he's standing next to Eduardo. The thing that no one tells cyborgs when they have cyberkinetics installed is that technopaths don't just have sex with a cyborg, they generally also integrate with the cyberkinetics on some level. It's like a drug, like some infinitely small change in the very fiber of a cyborg's being.
The thing about being 70% cyberkinetic that only Eduardo knows, because only Eduardo could know this, is that integrating is almost assured, whether the technopath is conscious of it or not. So, when Mark slides into the space next to him at the bar, fingers brushing along Eduardo's, he's excepting the rush. He's not expecting the intense and insistent pull. It's like he's under the Mark's spell, and the thing is that Eduardo doesn't even feel the need to fight it. He thinks that maybe he should, thinks that maybe playing with a high-power technopath is like playing with fire.
He doesn't even know Mark's name yet, just takes in the way his t-shirt hugs his shoulders and the way his jeans are tight, but not that tight. They fit, which is something the Eduardo can appreciate. Mark smiles at him, and Eduardo thinks that asking if he wants to maybe go somewhere a little quieter when they've just met is a little forward and he was raised a gentleman, so he doesn't do that.
"Hey," Eduardo says instead, "do you wanna dance?"
Mark laughs, and it's like electricity, "I thought you'd never ask."
Contrary to popular belief, Mark actually does understand how human relationships work. Erica Albright, who was a bitch that deserved the things he said about her, used to call him Mr. Roboto. It was meant as a joke so Mark let it slide, but secretly it sort of bugged him that she thought he was a robot. He isn't cyberkinetic at all, doesn't even have enhanced hearing installed, but people always assumed he is because he likes machines better than he likes humans. Maybe that's why when he's dancing with Eduardo, it just feels easy.
Then again, that might just be the technopath thing, because Mark knows that there isn't another technopath like him, at least not anywhere in the United States. The problem with knowing that, though, is that Mark isn't always entirely aware of how he's different from everyone else. He knows that if he wanted to, he could affect all the machinery within a ten foot radius with a minimal amount of effort. Anything beyond that and it gets a little tricky because he risks falling into his body's equivalent of sleep mode to better handle everything.
He's always assumed that was why cyborgs wanted to sleep with him, the danger of it. They're sort of at his mercy, in more ways than they're probably aware of, but it's not like Mark would do anything to them. He likes machinery and likes the way all of the bits fit together into this thing of beauty. Even though he can reprogram most things in a matter of minutes, Mark doesn't just reprogram things for fun. He only does it when it's necessary because Mark generally doesn't fix things that aren't broken.
While he's dancing with Eduardo, Mark presses close and touches his fingers to the bronzed strip of skin exposed between Eduardo's black skinny jeans and his t-shirt. Eduardo makes a noise that Mark feels but can't hear over the music, and then Mark's head is being tipped up and their lips are suddenly crashing together and there is so much too much not enough fuck fuck fuck. Mark pulls Eduardo closer, just wanting to lose himself in someone else for a second minute hour day week month year decade century. When Eduardo pulls away, Mark resurfaces with a gasp and blinks at Eduardo with unfocused eyes, not quite himself. Eduardo looks down at him and leans in to whisper into Mark's ear.
Come home with me.
Even if it wasn't part of his larger plan, Mark would probably say yes whispered across the expanse of Eduardo's skin. So they stumble into a taxi and they're not quite touching but the car is electric and Mark maybe tugs on Eduardo's signal line and whispers I like you too much across it. Eduardo looks over at Mark and smiles, like some kind of half-naked Tommy Hilfilger or Abercrombie and Fitch model selling overpriced t-shirts. That was what they were supposed to be selling, wasn't it? It seemed sort of counter-intuitive to Mark. Closing the space between their fingers, Eduardo tangles them together and then it's like the world is put into fast-forward and the next thing Mark processes, they're at Eduardo's door.
Neither of them are generally the kind of person (cliché or not) that stumbles into an apartment clawing at clothes and kissing like the world might end if they stopped, but that's what they're doing. Mark has a swirl of skin systems running smoothly bite power at 70% hands he's gorgeous me you meandyou there is no meandyou there is only us.
It's hard for him to tell what is Eduardo and what isn't for a moment, because there is so much information coming from so many different sources. Mark thinks that if this is what sex is like for normal people, then he can maybe see why they choose to have it so often. Eduardo circles his fingers around Mark's wrist and they kind of make their way toward Eduardo's room only Mark's fumbling with buttons and Eduardo's fingers are well and tangled in his hair and they are kissing, desperate and slightly messy, and then Mark's dropping to his knees in the hallway, taking down Eduardo because he's desperate to taste.
Like this, skin over his tongue and a constant feedback loop running between him and Eduardo, Mark is at ease. The thing that Erica Albright might have known (but probably didn't) was that Mark wasn't straight or gay or bisexual. To be any of those things would imply that he saw things in a more distinct categories than people and machines, which he doesn't. He sees people as people, and if he likes a person then he likes them on the terms of them being a person, not on the terms of what's between their legs. Mark's had girls and he's had guys, but the one constant is that he likes giving head.
He's good at it too, but that's not actually the point. Distantly, Mark remembers what his actual goal is and splays his fingers across Eduardo's hip. It only takes a moment to muck around in Eduardo's memory banks and erase all files relating to Facebook. There isn't any reason to stick around after that, but Mark doesn't want to go. Mark closes his eyes, knowing that if he had told Chris that this was his plan, Chris would have said no. I like you too much, Mark whispers to Eduardo's cyberkinetics, unwilling to say it out loud, and I wish you weren't a criminal. We integrate like we were made for each other. The little voice inside Mark's head (it sounds suspiciously like Chris) tells him You're a fool. His grip on Eduardo's hip tightens slightly and it's like a brand, five points of searing connection that make Eduardo moan and choke out a Mark, I- before he's whiting out.
When his systems sort themselves out, Eduardo looks down to see Mark on his knees, licking his fingers clean of what Eduardo only assumes is come. It's a pretty safe bet, though, because there's a slight smear at the corner of Mark's mouth, and Eduardo is dropping to the floor, cradling Mark's face between his hands and licking it away. They are losing themselves in this, Eduardo knows, integrating tighter and deeper than is probably wise, but he can't bring himself to care. Mark makes a noise, and Eduardo thinks that no. No, they're not doing this on the slightly dusty floor of his hallway. The bed isn't too far away and he tugs Mark along with him, pushing him back onto the bed. They begin the process of shedding clothes anew-actually managing to shed clothing this time-and then they're both naked.
Mark's cock is down Eduardo's throat, his hands fisted in the sheets, and he's completely unmarked. Eduardo marvels at that because there isn't a single surgery scar anywhere, and that has to mean that Mark is entirely organic. It's such a novel thing to Eduardo, who mostly hangs in clubs full of technopaths that have integrated with machinery in more ways than one, pretty girls like Christy that only want a cyborg to fuck, and cyborgs looking for a thrill. He's not sure how Mark fits into that spectrum, not sure how the most powerful technopath he's met winds up being the one that's entirely organic, but he can't really think about it for too long. Carefully, Eduardo works Mark open and catalogs how he falls apart, how he is so distinctly human that it hurts.
The nice thing about being a cyborg, Eduardo supposes, is that your body works differently. It means that his cock is kind of on its own time schedule and well. It would be awkward to say that Eduardo was a fucking machine, but accurate to say that his recovery time is not actually bound to very many laws of organics. No one's explained how that actually works and it's not a question Eduardo ever bothered to ask his doctors, but it's a thing that actually comes in handy sometimes. Sliding a condom on (not a necessity, but a courtesy), Eduardo lines up and then slides forward.
Mark's brain just stops. Everything is white for a split second, and then his brain starts whirring again and Mark immediately wants the white back. The white was quiet, devoid of the constant electronic chatter and data and all the other things that occupy Mark's brain at any given moment. Absently, Mark wonders if this is what sex is like for normal people. He's had it before, but mostly as a means to an end and not necessarily because he liked it or wanted it.
He craves this.
This is a drug running through his veins like water runs through a river and Mark cannot stop himself from running along with it. They fit together like Mark was constructed for Eduardo and Eduardo was molded for Mark, two parts of the same mechanism and really. Really, why does Eduardo have to be a criminal? That's not fair, because it means that Mark can't have this forever. He feels like someone who's just won the lottery and then died immediately afterward, because this is the only thing he's ever wanted and he can't have it for very long. He can have it for now, though, so Mark decides to be selfish for once in his life and take something without it being given to him freely.
It's not really taking something that isn't being given freely if Eduardo is enjoying it as much as Mark is, though. And he is, hips rocking forward in time with Mark's ragged breathing. Their fingers have found each other, and they're tangled together while they fuck. Mark comes without Eduardo actually touching him-past the sloppy blowjob that is-arching up off the sheets and sobbing brokenly. It doesn't take much more than that for Eduardo to come (again, which is probably greedy) and then he's collapsing next to Mark on the bed. Mark curls into him, and they rest like that: a pile of human and cyborg, almost but not quite a singular being.
What would you say if I said that / I want you? / Would you laugh at me / and maybe think I was crazy?
- "8bit Heart," Simon Curtis
As a general rule, Mark doesn't sleep very much. It's not because he doesn't want to, necessarily, but because he can't. Mark can't fall asleep if it's quiet. If it's quiet, then his brain never stops whirring and there's just no way to drown it out. Usually if he needs to sleep he'll put on music and that works okay, but he doesn't have music at the moment so he's not actually expecting to fall asleep curled up next to Eduardo, only Eduardo's systems aren't quite as quiet as they could be and it's kind of soothing so Mark falls into a shallow sleep next to someone for the first time that he can remember.
He wakes up at the first rays of light filtering into Eduardo's room and carefully uncurls himself from Eduardo. Looking down at Eduardo, Mark feels bad. He doesn't want to leave, but he's finished what he came for and he really shouldn't stay. Mark collects his clothes and locates Eduardo's bathroom, dressing and scanning the counter for something suitable to write a message in. Usually it's lipstick, but Eduardo doesn't have any (and if he does, Mark doesn't really want to know) so he finally grabs Eduardo's bodywash out of the shower and pours some of it onto the palm of his hand. He dips his fingertip into it and scrawls I'M SORRY across the mirror, because he is.
Mark is sorry that he can't stay, sorry that he only did it to protect Facebook, sorry that Eduardo is a criminal, sorry for a lot of circumstantial things. Exiting the bathroom, Mark glances over at Eduardo again and wonders what they would have been like if they met differently. If Eduardo had walked up to him at a Harvard party and they became friends. He shakes the thought from his head and walks over to the bed, bending down to press a kiss to Eduardo's forehead. Eduardo shifts slightly and Mark pulls away, turning and walking out of the apartment without looking back.
He doesn't go into the offices immediately, which is not unusual. It's barely past 6am and even Chris probably won't be there yet unless he just never went home. Instead, Mark walks along the streets slowly. He's sort of headed toward his apartment, but mostly he's wandering around and trying to shake the bits and pieces in him that aren't him. That's always the problem Mark has with sex when mixed with integration: for a while, he isn't himself. It happens a little with regular integration, but it's momentary and Mark can shake it off quickly. This is different.
This is an empty space inside of him that was filled with Eduardo, bits of him that aren't him bouncing around inside and muddling his brain. Chris will be able to tell that something is off thanks to his uncanny ability to always know when something is wrong, and Mark mostly just wants to be alone to sort himself out.
I am Mark Zuckerberg, he tells himself firmly, I am twenty-one years old, and I'm the only registered level seven technopath in the world. I created Facebook, both of them, and my mother is extremely proud of me. I called Erica Albright a bitch on the internet because she deserved it. I work under Chris Hughes as a hacker of dubious legality with Dustin Moskovitz. That is who I am.
Unlocking the door to his house, Mark heads in and shuts the door behind him. He walks into his computer room and sits in front of the computer running Facebook (the Winklevii one, not the CIA one) and pulls up Eduardo's page. He stares at it for a moment, hovering over the "add friend" button for a moment before dismissing the thought entirely. It would be kind of creepy and besides, Dustin would probably ask him about it when he went into the office.
Instead, he dismisses the page and pulls up the part of the code that's been giving the Winklevii problems. He actually hadn't been lying when he said that he needed to work out a bug.
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
- B. F. Skinner
Technically, Eduardo doesn't need to sleep that often, but he likes to because it keeps him from crashing in awkward places. Next to Mark, though, falling asleep just seems easy. He likes the way Mark's name feels in his mouth, likes the way everything seems easy with him, but Eduardo isn't actually that surprised when he wakes up to a cold bed. It's not like he isn't used to it, but Mark doesn't actually seem like the kind of person who feels bad about not sticking around, so the message on the mirror is surprising. Eduardo smiles fondly when he sees it scrawled on the mirror, wiping it away before he takes a shower.
There's that feeling when you wake up in the morning, though, where it's like: There was something important. Something is missing. Eduardo usually feels like that so he doesn't worry that much, and he's not quite awake yet so he's no firing on all cylinders anyway. It doesn't click into place until he's halfway through his coffee. Eduardo accesses his memory banks and runs a file search for facebook.
File not found
Sean is going to murder him. Well, metaphorically anyway. Eduardo glances at the clock and, as if summoned, Eduardo's phone buzzes to life. He answers it, taking a sip of his coffee.
"Hey, Eduardo! I'll be over in like, ten minutes. Be awake."
"I'm awake," Eduardo says, "I'll see you then, Sean."
Eduardo hangs up on Sean, not wanting to talk to him just that second, and finishes off his coffee. Once he's done, he looks at the coffee machine and sighs, pouring himself another cup. While he's drinking it, Eduardo runs a whole bunch of memory bank searches for the files, in the desperate hope that they're still there but hidden somewhere amongst the detritus of his life. They're not, and Eduardo slumps against his counter. He's trying to figure out how he's going to explain this to Sean when he doesn't even know how it happened but, because his day cannot get any worse, Sean knocks on the door just then. Eduardo winces before straightening up and walking over to let Sean in. As soon as Sean gets in, he's slinging an arm around Eduardo.
"Eduardo! How does it feel to be a criminal?"
"Sean," Eduardo says, "we have a problem."
Sean laughs, "What could the problem be? We have the program that will change the world!"
"That," Eduardo sighs, "would be the problem. We don't."
Sean stops, turning and grabbing Eduardo by the shoulders. Eduardo looks away, not wanting to meet Sean's eyes, and Sean give Eduardo a small shake.
"What do you mean by we don't have it?"
"Exactly what I said," Eduardo whispers, "we don't have it, because I lost it."
Letting go of Eduardo's shoulders, Sean turns to pace the length of the couch angrily. Eduardo watches him, tracking Sean's movements and bracing himself for whatever Sean does. It's not like Sean will hurt him, but that doesn't mean that the walls or the table or anything else in Eduardo's apartment is safe.
"How," Sean says evenly, much calmer than he appears, "do you lose an entire program?"
"I-I don't know," Eduardo stammers, "one minute it was in my memory banks and the next it wasn't! My memory's been hacked."
There's a pause in Sean's pacing, and then he turns to give Eduardo a mildly incredulous look. Unable to meet Sean's eyes again, Eduardo looks over at the short hallway that leads to his bedroom and the bathroom. A traitor, his memory bank brings up the image of Mark on his knees and Eduardo closes his eyes.
"No one can do that," Sean says, breaking Eduardo's train of thought, "you'd notice if they did."
Eduardo looks at Sean, properly meeting his eyes, "I'm 70% machine, Sean! I'm more computer than human, regular rules don't apply to me. My memory's been hacked."
There's a deafening silence in Eduardo's apartment, Eduardo and Sean facing each other and the silence between them charged and electric. Sean walks over to Eduardo, crowing him up against the kitchen counter.
"It doesn't matter. Find him," Sean bites out, "I don't care what it takes, I don't care how you do it, find Zuckerberg and bring him to me."
Once you know what it is you want to be true, instinct is a very useful device for enabling you to know that it is.
- Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Mark has been staring at his computer screen a little blankly for the past hour, and it's starting to worry Chris. Not because Mark doesn't appear to be doing anything, but because Mark doesn't appear to be integrating with his computer at all. Chris has learned to tell when Mark is actually integrated with something and when he's just thinking, and this appears to be a just thinking time.
"Mark," Chris says gently, "are you okay?"
Mark turns to look at Chris, "Chris, what do you do when someone you really like but who is probably not the best person to be in a relationship with wants to be your friend on Facebook and go out for drinks?"
Were Chris speaking to any other person on the face of Earth, he would have asked why Mark was asking him what to do. Unfortunately, he wasn't talking to any other person on the face of Earth. He was talking to Mark Zuckerberg, who tended to treat Chris like his public relations manager. It wasn't an untrue assessment of what Chris' job description concerning Mark Zuckerberg was, though, so Chris generally let it slide. He sighed and rubbed his temples.
"Will this person make you happy?"
There's a long silence where Chris thinks that maybe Mark is trying to figure out what Chris actually means by that question, which is a very Mark thing to do. He doesn't always understand that sometimes questions mean exactly what they're asking. Mark glances over at his computer.
"There's a high probability for that."
"Okay," Chris pats Mark's shoulder, "then I say you go for it."
Eduardo paces around his house and tries not to worry to much about how completely insane this new plan is. He actually doesn't even think it'll work, considering that Eduardo is 85% sure that Mark Zuckerberg (and Eduardo probably should have put together the first name Mark with the technopath thing to realize that he had picked up Mark fucking Zuckerberg) only slept with him to hack into his memory and probably wants nothing to do with him, but something tells Eduardo that he should send the message anyway.
It's about an hour later that Mark finally gets back to Eduardo, who spends three minutes looking at the unread message nervously before opening it. If this doesn't work, there's always other ways to go about kidnapping Mark, but the message only says Sure. and then lists a time and the address of a bar that Eduardo's never been to. He blinks at his screen and then reads the message again.
Maybe Mark wasn't the one who hacked into his memory? That would be impossible, though, because Eduardo didn't spend long enough with anyone after . . . Whatever. It's not actually important, Eduardo figures, because the point was to get Mark to go out drinking with him so he could slip the drug into his drink and . . . Yeah, Eduardo is not a big fan of this plan, but it's Sean's idea and Eduardo is a little bit too far into this whole mess to back out now.
The atmosphere in the bar is vastly different from the atmosphere in the club, but Mark is dressed approximately the same. Absently, Eduardo wonders whether Mark owns any other kind of clothing. He works for the CIA, though, so Eduardo assumes he has at least some formal clothes. He doesn't have very long to think about that, though, because Mark grins when he spots Eduardo and walks over. Mark has a beer and Eduardo has a virgin Bloody Mary. He doesn't mention the virgin part to Mark, and when Mark is about two beers in, Eduardo slips the drug into his drink.
Mark is pretty much dead weight by the time Eduardo calls Sean to come pick him up, and Eduardo whispers I'm sorry before manhandling Mark into the car.
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
- Isaac Asimov
The first thing Mark realizes when he wakes up is that he isn't anywhere familiar and none of the electronics that he's integrated with are anywhere near him except-
"You're awake!"
-Eduardo. Trying to focus past the haze that is currently fogging up his brain, Mark manages to locate Eduardo not too far away from where he's shackled to a chair. His hands are free though, which Mark thinks is a little stupid, only then he notices. There's a table in front of him, he's been tied to the chair, the chair is too heavy for Mark to move, and his upper body is basically the only thing he can move. Not a good position.
Mark glares, "You kidnapped me."
"Sorry," Eduardo rubs at the back of his neck, "Sean's orders. He wants Facebook."
"He can't have it," Mark says almost immediately, "Mostly because the code is so complex that I doubt he could find anyone who could understand it, but also because Sean is a jackass and he's still mad that I shut down Napster."
"I'm sorry. Are you hungry?"
For a second, Mark is confused, and then he sees the tray that Eduardo is carrying. It has what looks like a plate of fries and a protein shake on it, which makes Mark assume that they're somewhere that Eduardo spends a lot of time, because that's cyborg food. Or maybe they think Mark is a cyborg, which would be a kind of stupid but not an unreasonable assumption. Eduardo sets the tray of food down in front of Mark and Mark pushes it away. Eduardo sighs.
"I said I was sorry for kidnapping you. Please eat."
"The system was right about you," Mark leans forward on the table, even though it makes the rope cut into his stomach a little painfully, "you are way too fucking polite."
Mark isn't entirely sure how a nice guy like Eduardo got caught up with Sean Parker. Sean Parker is many things, chief among them a criminal. At least, that's what Mark calls him. Sean probably calls himself something less abrasive, like business tycoon or entrepreneur, but fundamentally he's a criminal. He takes other people's work and twists it to fit into his own greedy plans. Also he didn't invent Napster, which makes him a fucking liar.
Eduardo is still standing on the other side of the table, like he's waiting for Mark to eat the food, and Mark just glares at him. Finally, after a few minutes, Eduardo sighs again and takes the tray away. Once he's out of the room, Mark closes his eyes and tries to pick up on nearby signal lines. They're all far enough away that Mark can't actually distinguish the colors, so he just stretches and grabs one at random. He needs a computer connected to wi-fi, but the first thing he gets is a security system. There aren't very many computers in the general vicinity, hooked up to wi-fi or not, so Mark just keeps stretching farther out and grabbing until he finds what he wants. He finds some computer with internet access eventually and Mark quickly tells it that he wants to send an email, unsure of how long he'll be able to stay connected. The computer is more than happy to send it for Mark.
The signal is distant, and Mark is stretched thin. Once the computer is done sending his message, Mark lets go of the signal and slowly makes his way back to reality. He's not sure how much time has passed since he started grabbing signal lines, because there isn't really such a thing as "time" when you're integrated. It's kind of draining to be stretched as thin as Mark was, though.
Eduardo says: "Do you always sleep this much?"
"It depends," Mark snorts, "I've never been drugged before."
It doesn't come out quite as scathing as Mark had intended, but Eduardo winces slightly anyway. He drops a plate of food in front of Mark, and Mark has to eat it because he used up a significant amount of energy stretching himself out and trying to send a distress email.
Eduardo smiles sheepishly, "Sorry it's not, you know, actual food."
Mark swallows his mouthful of fries, "It's fine. Why are you doing this?"
"Sean asked for my help," Eduardo says, like that explains anything, "He has a way of being too persuasive."
"You didn't have to do this," Mark picks at the tray of fries, "
"He's like family," Eduardo sounds sad, "and I kind of owe him my life."
There are a lot of things that Mark wants to say to that, but he doesn't say any of them. Eduardo doesn't look like he really wants to talk about it anyway, so Mark drops the subject. Instead, he slowly works his way through the french fries and the protein shake and waits for Chris and Dustin to do their jobs and come rescue him.
"How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?"
- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
It takes two days before anyone realizes that Mark is gone. This has less to do with the fact that no one cares and more to do with the fact that Mark disappears quite frequently for days on end without telling anyone. Chris has gotten to the point where he sort of assumes that if Mark didn't come in, it's because he was coding something and forgot that his sense of time is ridiculously warped when he's integrated. They only realize that isn't the case because Dustin gets an email.
I was kidnapped. I don't actually know where I am, but it's probably somewhere near Eduardo Saverin's apartment. You should come get me, so I can stick Sean Parker in jail for real this time.
When Chris asks how Dustin knows it's actually Mark sending the email and not someone else, Dustin raises an eyebrow and points to the email address. Which, okay. There actually isn't one, and that would be freakier if it didn't happen quiet often around Mark. He'd tried to explain how he did it, once, only it didn't make any sense to Dustin or Chris so they just took it as another one of the weird little things Mark could make a computer do.
"Who the fuck is Eduardo Saverin and why has he kidnapped Mark?"
Chris leans over Dustin's shoulder, peering at the screen, "That's like asking why the sky is blue, Dustin, everyone wants to kidnap Mark. Did you Google him?"
"Yeah," Dustin pulls up the search, "but he doesn't seem to have any reason to kidnap Mark. The guy's barely older than Mark."
Chris looks at Dustin, "Did you Facebook him?"
Dustin is quiet for a second, "I probably should have done that, huh?"
The Look that Chris gives Dustin is mostly there must be some top-secret reason why you were hired with a healthy dose of Dustin, I cannot deal with you right now. Dustin shrinks a little under it and quickly runs a Facebook search of Eduardo Saverin using the picture on his Facebook page. Sometimes, when Dustin has to do Facebook searches, the wording gets complicated. He blames Mark for insisting that the facial recognition program be named Facebook too. So now Dustin runs Facebook searches using Facebook photos while he's browsing Facebook on his phone using the new Facebook app. Facebook Facebook Facebook. Facebook. It stops looking like a word after a while.
Sometimes, Dustin suspects that Mark might be a little bit crazy. Actually, Dustin knows that Mark is a little bit crazy, but he suspects that Mark might love Facebook (either of them. both of them.) more than pretty much anything else that exists. His computer gives a cheerful search completed! and Dustin starts skimming the results of the search. Absently, he wishes that Mark weren't kidnapped because Dustin really sucks at this part of their jobs. He'd much rather be out catching the bad guys, not reading about them.
I'm not your robot. / Stop telling me I'm part of the big machine. / I'm breaking free.
- "Robot," Miley Cyrus
Sean shakes Mark awake again, and Mark stares at him in a way Eduardo knows means he's not fully there. It's kind of distressing to see Mark like that, and Eduardo doesn't know if he's okay or not. He wants to check Mark over, see if he's okay, but Sean's already sitting in front of Mark. Eduardo should probably go do something else, but he's not sure if he trusts Sean to be alone with Mark, so he leans against the wall and watches. He can tell that Mark is purposefully ignoring Sean and Sean is getting increasingly frustrated, so when Sean raises his hand, Eduardo catches it.
"No. You said you weren't going to hurt him."
Sean jerks his hand out of Eduardo's grip, "Stay out of this, Eduardo. You've already done your part."
"No," Eduardo repeats, "You're not going to hurt him."
"Or what? What could you possibly do?"
Eduardo smiles, dangerous and sure, "I can turn us in."
There's a heavy and tense silence in the room. Sean seems wary, like he's not sure what to think of Eduardo. Like he's not sure if Eduardo is bluffing or not. Eduardo sees Mark looking at him, eyes suddenly sharp and focused, like he's analyzing what Eduardo's doing too. It would be suicide to turn them in, but it's not actually an empty threat. There are things more important than repaying debt.
The thing Mark is learning about Eduardo Saverin is that he's . . . unique. It's not just the fact that he's 70% cyberkinetic, it's not the fact that he's too nice for his own good. It's that, unlike most people, Mark can't actually predict what he's going to do. For instance, Eduardo is currently facing off against Sean, who he feels some sort of familial obligation to. Mark would have never guessed that Eduardo would do that, because . . . He's threatening to turn them in, and that's pure insanity in Mark's opinion.
When a cyborg commits a serious crime, their cyberkinetics get deactivated. Conspiracy is definitely a serious crime, and just. It makes Mark slightly ill to think about Eduardo being deactivated. It makes him ill to think about anyone being deactivated, but Mark knows he'll have to be in the room when Dustin deactivates Eduardo and Mark can't handle deactivations.
If Eduardo is going to do something unexpected, then Mark is going to have to do something unexpected too. There aren't any rules to the game they're playing anymore.
"You wouldn't," Sean says, but he sounds unsure, "that would be condemning yourself to death."
"According to most people," Eduardo shrugs, "I should already be dead. What would the difference be?"
The difference between Eduardo and Sean has always been that Sean is a leader, and Eduardo is a follower. Sean would come up with the crazy ideas, grand schemes and Eduardo would raise an eyebrow but follow along with his schemes. That's the way it's always been, but the tables have obviously shifted. Sean isn't one to take insubordination lightly, but he's actually not sure about the way Eduardo will react to anything anymore. He used to know, when they were younger, and used to have Eduardo wrapped around his finger. This Eduardo is one that he doesn't understand. He sees Eduardo's gaze shift over to Mark, and Sean turns to look at Mark too. Mark looks back at him, every bit of the smug, self-assured genius that Sean remembers.
"It's fine," Mark says suddenly, "he won't have to do that. I'll give you the code."
It takes them four hours to locate Mark, because they send an agent out to Eduardo Saverin's apartment, and there's no one there. There's a moment where no one's sure what they should be looking next until Chris snaps his fingers. He points at Dustin, who waits patiently while Chris tries to formulate a sentence.
"You said Eduardo's family was rich."
"Yes, but he lost most of-"
"Check to see if he owns any property."
Dustin doesn't question Chris, just turns back to his computer and filters the Facebook search information down to the things about property and addresses. Eduardo apparently still owns a house on the very outskirts of New York, and his last credit card purchase was not too far from there. Dustin relays this information to Chris and then they're both grabbing their guns and heading toward that address.
Eduardo shakes his head, staring at Mark in disbelief. Mark, who was so adamant that Sean couldn't have the code less than a day ago, is willingly giving it up. It doesn't make any sense to Eduardo, but then again . . . Eduardo shakes his head again.
"You don't have to do this, Mark."
"It's okay," Mark shrugs, "it's not like he'll be able to do anything with the code if I give it to him."
Sean grins, wolfish and awful, and he leaves the room for a second. Eduardo stays, though, staring at Mark. Mark stares back, lips slowly curving into a smile.
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."
There's a car in the driveway of the house that looks like it was parked recently, and Eduardo can't drive so it's probably safe to assume that Eduardo is there with Sean Parker. Carefully, Chris and Dustin sneak up on the house. The locks are all manual, so Dustin has to pick them, and then they're in.
The house isn't particularly large, but there's no one living in any of the rooms that Dustin and Chris check. The kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, and the bedrooms are all clear. There's only one room left in the house, and both Chris and Dustin slowly make their way toward it. The last room in the house is some sort of study, and Chris and Dustin glance at each other before they kick the door in.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
- Isaac Asimov
Mark's got Sean's laptop in front of him and about forty lines of completely innocuous but functional lines of code on the screen, having been untied so he could work properly. They don't actually do anything, and Mark is immensely grateful that Chris and Dustin chose that moment to bust in.
Eduardo doesn't fight: when Dustin tells him to stand down and put his arms behind his head, he does. Sean, however, fights. It's the one thing that Sean isn't very good at, giving up, so it's not really a surprise that he puts up a pretty good fight. Having secured Eduardo, Dustin leaves him with Mark and goes to help Chris. Together, Chris and Dustin manage to restrain Sean somehow. Mark keeps glancing between Sean and Eduardo, and he seems nervous, fidgeting in a way that doesn't mesh well with the picture of Mark that Eduardo has in his head. Granted, it's not a very thorough picture, but Eduardo knows enough about Mark to know that this isn't his typical behavior.
While Chris is restraining Sean, Dustin walks over to Eduardo, and he stops about a foot away, just looking Eduardo over. Eduardo is pretty sure he knows what'll happen next. They tell you when you have the cyberkinetics installed. They tell you when you go in for check-ups. They tell you when you register as a cyborg. They tell you when you want to upgrade. They tell you over and over again, until you can recite it from memory.
If you commit a serious crime, your cyberkinetics will be deactivated. Life is a privilege, not a right.
So Eduardo knows that he'll be deactivated. He also knows that he probably won't survive it, even though deactivation doesn't actually mean you're killing a person. It does mean that the person isn't completely functional anymore, and Mark doesn't think about what he's doing. Dustin is about to deactivate Eduardo and Mark steps between the two of them, holding his arms out.
"No," he says, "It's not his fault. Eduardo had nothing to do with this."
"Mark," Dustin says, "Mark, he kidnapped you."
"Eduardo," Mark says, danger laced through his voice, "had nothing to do with this. Even if you say he did, I can erase every shred of evidence that he did. It won't even take me ten minutes."
Chris ties the rope around Sean's hands a little more viciously than absolutely necessary, "No. No he has to be deactivated, Mark, you know the rules."
Mark raises an eyebrow, and Chris wants to let this slide, but the problem is that it's against the rules and the rules exist for a reason. The rules exist so that people get what they deserve and Chris sighs because the problem with Mark is that he's more like a machine than he realizes. He doesn't have a clear concept of good and bad, sees the world as a binary of things that are bad for Facebook and things that are harmless or useful to Facebook.
The problem is that the rules don't apply to Mark, because he's got the entire world at his fingertips and all the databases like him best. If it wants to make a person disappear, he can do it. Chris forces Sean down into one of the chairs, not caring if it causes him pain.
"I can't really stop you from doing what you want, can I?"
"No," Mark smirks, "It's not like the government will object, because they know better."
Chris sees Dustin wince, knows that they're both recalling the time Mark shut the government's entire infrastructure down because they wanted to give Facebook some fancy codename and he objected. Mark brought the system back online after ten seconds, everything completely as it was, but people mostly let Mark do whatever he want after that. This will be no different, so Chris just sighs.
"You are going to have to fill out so much paperwork to get this cleared."
"Just be glad I'm actually doing the paperwork," Mark says, "I could just fix the whole thing without ever doing the actual paperwork."
There's really nothing that Chris can say to that, because it's entirely true. Mark has a horrible habit of getting results via means of incredibly dubious legality. As in only marginally less illegal than hacking the Pentagon, but most of his infractions slide because Mark is working for the government instead of against them and if he can get the information, then most of the higher-ups aren't particularly concerned about how he gets the information.
Still. Chris and Mark have their customary silent eyebrow negotiations before Chris mutters fine and grabs Sean by the elbow, all but dragging him out of the room. Dustin is doing the same with Sean's other elbow, and while Dustin and Chris are escorting Sean out of the room, Eduardo walks over and hugs Mark.
"Thank you," he whispers, somewhere between crying and gratitude.
Mark isn't sure what to do, because people don't really touch him and he can't really think because he's not expecting it so there's a sudden overload of information Mark isn't prepared to parse and he completely freezes. Eduardo seems to realize that he probably shouldn't have hugged Mark quite so spontaneously, though, because he lets Mark go after a few seconds.
"Sorry. Sorry, I forgot that the more places you're touching me, the more information you get at once."
"It's an easy mistake," Mark says, "Um. You have to come with us. You and I have to fill out paperwork."
"Sure," Eduardo says, "Yeah, sure."
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The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.
- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
There are days when Dustin, Chris, and Mark actually get work done. There are days when they're out in the field, catching bad guys and making America safer for everyone, but currently they're not doing any of those things. Currently, Mark is running system diagnostics and paying only a minimal amount of attention to Dustin and Chris. Dustin is being . . . Dustin. From what Mark can tell, he's badgering Chris about what his job description is. No one said that Dustin was actually smart or anything.
Dustin peers at Chris, "Like, what's your actual job? The only thing I ever see you do is boss us around."
In the grand scheme of things, Eduardo is not sure that he will ever do anything more crazy than infiltrating the CIA and stealing a top-secret program out from under their noses. He's not actually even sure why he agreed to Sean's crazy plan, but he did and now they're a couple of blocks away and Eduardo is dressed up in a suit with the proper access cards and all kinds of other stuff that he is pretty sure was illegally obtained by Sean . . . somehow. Eduardo doesn't want to know how Sean got it, and he doesn't care. He takes deep breath, and slips the earpiece in.
Eduardo looks over at Sean, "This is crazy."
Chris gives Dustin that look he has perfected, the one that says I'm going to pretend you're not an idiot and I don't understand how you ever got hired by the CIA all at once.
Eduardo walks into the CIA building and tries to look like he belongs there, which is actually surprisingly easy because most of the people in the building are otherwise occupied and not paying too much attention to him.
"I'm your boss, you idiot."
He flashes his security pass to a guard.
"Technically," Mark looks up from his computer, "the president is our boss."
While Eduardo is riding up in the elevator, he pulls up the map of the building in his optics.
Dustin rolls his eyes, "I know that, Chris. I meant, like. What are you technically called?"
The elevator gives a cheerful ding! when Eduardo reaches the correct level, and he steps out.
"I can't believe you don't know this. I'm your handler, Dustin. I make sure you don't pose a threat to the government." Mark opens his mouth, and Chris cuts him off. "Unless your name is Mark Zuckerberg, in which case I make sure you don't pose more of a threat to the government and handle various details of your personal life because you exist solely to make my life difficult."
Eduardo exits the elevator, taking a moment to survey where he actually is before he heads toward the terminal that Sean has determined is probably the easiest point to hack into the systems from. He passes by a lot of people, none of whom seem to recognize that he doesn't actually belong in the building. Personally, Eduardo thinks that says a lot about the sophistication of their security measures.
Mark rolls his eyes and touches his forehead to the computer's screen again. Dustin hits Mark in the head with a paper ball and Mark resurfaces, turning to glare at Dustin.
The terminal is actually fairly easy to locate once Eduardo finally figures out how to read the stupid optic map, walk, and not run into things all at the same time. It's harder than it sounds.
"You can't make the computer do all the work, Mark. That's not what you're being paid for."
Once he's at the terminal, Eduardo takes a deep breath. Then, he touches his fingertips to the console and integrates with it.
"Yes it is," Mark turns back to his computer, "I'm being paid to not hack the Pentagon by accident again."
The computer asks him to identify himself once he's given credentials and Eduardo tells it: Hi, I'm Eduardo Saverin.
Dustin sighs loudly, "I still don't think it's fair that all you have to do is ask nicely and the computer just does what you want. The rest of us have to do actual work."
Once he's identified himself, the computer seems to leave him to his own devices, only taking a cursory interest in what he's doing poking around in the system.
"It's not my fault the computers don't like you, Dustin."
It doesn't actually take that long to locate the Facebook program, thankfully.
Chris rolls his eyes, "Both of you idiots should get back to work."
Quickly, Eduardo downloads the program into his memory banks.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Mark touches his forehead to his computer again and asks it if anything has changed in the last couple of minutes.
Thanking the system for letting him muck around in it, Eduardo resurfaces. He shakes off the machine and then heads back out of the building the same way he came in.
Oh, Mark's computer cheerfully says, A cyborg named Eduardo Saverin accessed Facebook and downloaded the program files into his memory banks.
And that's it. Eduardo Saverin, twenty-two, has stolen the government's top-secret facial recognition program with a very minimal amount of effort.
Mark swears.
Eduardo calls Sean.
"Shit. Shit"
"Did you get it?"
Dustin glances over, "Something wrong, Mark?"
"Yeah. Are you going to meet up with me now?"
"It's nothing," Mark grabs his jacket, "I'll see you guys tomorrow, okay? I've got to fix a bug."
"Nah, I have some stuff to do. I'll meet you tomorrow afternoon. It's not going anywhere."
Chris waves, "See you tomorrow, Mark."
"Okay. See you tomorrow then, Sean."
The city's central computer told you? R2D2, you know better than to trust a strange computer!
- C3PO
The computer told Mark that Eduardo Saverin was a cyborg, so Mark grabs Eduardo's currently listed address from the registered cyborgs database while he's walking out of the building. From there, it takes Mark about thirty seconds to find Eduardo Saverin's Facebook page-which tells him that Eduardo Saverin is interested in men, women and is single and is headed to a club. Let's hope my hangover isn't too bad tomorrow., which is all useful information and using all of that, Mark forms a plan of attack for controlling the situation. On his way home, though, he stops by an ATM and grabs Eduardo's bank information just in case. It's never a bad thing to have someone's bank information.
By the time Eduardo gets home after calling Sean, it's just past six o'clock on a Friday and Eduardo doesn't actually have anything to do until he meets up with Sean tomorrow so he decides to say fuck it to everything and go to a club. He just stole something from the government, he can spend a night dancing and maybe pick someone up. As some kind of ironic gesture or whatever, Eduardo sends in the Facebook status update: Eduardo Saverin is headed to a club. Let's hope my hangover isn't too bad tomorrow. He hops in the shower and starts mentally shuffling through the things in his wardrobe for something appropriate while he's lathering up. The night is still young, and Eduardo is going to rock it.
The club is loud, bass like a secondary heartbeat. It's not really the kind of place Mark prefers, mostly because everything is tinged with electric blue and he's not quite sure what's signal line and what's actual lighting at first. Not that being able to see the signal lines is particularly important at the moment, but it would probably make finding Eduardo Saverin easier. Mark takes a sip of his beer and brings up the signal lines again, trying to block out the mood lighting. There's different colors of blue for different things, and Mark sorts through them until he's located the cyborgs in the mass of people on the dancefloor. The brighter they are, the more cyberkinetics they have installed and Mark's pretty much only getting normal levels of brightness. Eduardo Saverin is something like 70% cyberkinetic, which Mark thinks would mean that he lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. There's nothing like that in the-no.
By the bar there's an almost blinding cyberkinetic blue, and Mark is drawn to it like a hipster to a Mac. Dismissing the signal lines, Mark finishes his beer before winding through the crowd until he's standing next to Eduardo. The thing that no one tells cyborgs when they have cyberkinetics installed is that technopaths don't just have sex with a cyborg, they generally also integrate with the cyberkinetics on some level. It's like a drug, like some infinitely small change in the very fiber of a cyborg's being.
The thing about being 70% cyberkinetic that only Eduardo knows, because only Eduardo could know this, is that integrating is almost assured, whether the technopath is conscious of it or not. So, when Mark slides into the space next to him at the bar, fingers brushing along Eduardo's, he's excepting the rush. He's not expecting the intense and insistent pull. It's like he's under the Mark's spell, and the thing is that Eduardo doesn't even feel the need to fight it. He thinks that maybe he should, thinks that maybe playing with a high-power technopath is like playing with fire.
He doesn't even know Mark's name yet, just takes in the way his t-shirt hugs his shoulders and the way his jeans are tight, but not that tight. They fit, which is something the Eduardo can appreciate. Mark smiles at him, and Eduardo thinks that asking if he wants to maybe go somewhere a little quieter when they've just met is a little forward and he was raised a gentleman, so he doesn't do that.
"Hey," Eduardo says instead, "do you wanna dance?"
Mark laughs, and it's like electricity, "I thought you'd never ask."
Contrary to popular belief, Mark actually does understand how human relationships work. Erica Albright, who was a bitch that deserved the things he said about her, used to call him Mr. Roboto. It was meant as a joke so Mark let it slide, but secretly it sort of bugged him that she thought he was a robot. He isn't cyberkinetic at all, doesn't even have enhanced hearing installed, but people always assumed he is because he likes machines better than he likes humans. Maybe that's why when he's dancing with Eduardo, it just feels easy.
Then again, that might just be the technopath thing, because Mark knows that there isn't another technopath like him, at least not anywhere in the United States. The problem with knowing that, though, is that Mark isn't always entirely aware of how he's different from everyone else. He knows that if he wanted to, he could affect all the machinery within a ten foot radius with a minimal amount of effort. Anything beyond that and it gets a little tricky because he risks falling into his body's equivalent of sleep mode to better handle everything.
He's always assumed that was why cyborgs wanted to sleep with him, the danger of it. They're sort of at his mercy, in more ways than they're probably aware of, but it's not like Mark would do anything to them. He likes machinery and likes the way all of the bits fit together into this thing of beauty. Even though he can reprogram most things in a matter of minutes, Mark doesn't just reprogram things for fun. He only does it when it's necessary because Mark generally doesn't fix things that aren't broken.
While he's dancing with Eduardo, Mark presses close and touches his fingers to the bronzed strip of skin exposed between Eduardo's black skinny jeans and his t-shirt. Eduardo makes a noise that Mark feels but can't hear over the music, and then Mark's head is being tipped up and their lips are suddenly crashing together and there is so much too much not enough fuck fuck fuck. Mark pulls Eduardo closer, just wanting to lose himself in someone else for a second minute hour day week month year decade century. When Eduardo pulls away, Mark resurfaces with a gasp and blinks at Eduardo with unfocused eyes, not quite himself. Eduardo looks down at him and leans in to whisper into Mark's ear.
Come home with me.
Even if it wasn't part of his larger plan, Mark would probably say yes whispered across the expanse of Eduardo's skin. So they stumble into a taxi and they're not quite touching but the car is electric and Mark maybe tugs on Eduardo's signal line and whispers I like you too much across it. Eduardo looks over at Mark and smiles, like some kind of half-naked Tommy Hilfilger or Abercrombie and Fitch model selling overpriced t-shirts. That was what they were supposed to be selling, wasn't it? It seemed sort of counter-intuitive to Mark. Closing the space between their fingers, Eduardo tangles them together and then it's like the world is put into fast-forward and the next thing Mark processes, they're at Eduardo's door.
Neither of them are generally the kind of person (cliché or not) that stumbles into an apartment clawing at clothes and kissing like the world might end if they stopped, but that's what they're doing. Mark has a swirl of skin systems running smoothly bite power at 70% hands he's gorgeous me you meandyou there is no meandyou there is only us.
It's hard for him to tell what is Eduardo and what isn't for a moment, because there is so much information coming from so many different sources. Mark thinks that if this is what sex is like for normal people, then he can maybe see why they choose to have it so often. Eduardo circles his fingers around Mark's wrist and they kind of make their way toward Eduardo's room only Mark's fumbling with buttons and Eduardo's fingers are well and tangled in his hair and they are kissing, desperate and slightly messy, and then Mark's dropping to his knees in the hallway, taking down Eduardo because he's desperate to taste.
Like this, skin over his tongue and a constant feedback loop running between him and Eduardo, Mark is at ease. The thing that Erica Albright might have known (but probably didn't) was that Mark wasn't straight or gay or bisexual. To be any of those things would imply that he saw things in a more distinct categories than people and machines, which he doesn't. He sees people as people, and if he likes a person then he likes them on the terms of them being a person, not on the terms of what's between their legs. Mark's had girls and he's had guys, but the one constant is that he likes giving head.
He's good at it too, but that's not actually the point. Distantly, Mark remembers what his actual goal is and splays his fingers across Eduardo's hip. It only takes a moment to muck around in Eduardo's memory banks and erase all files relating to Facebook. There isn't any reason to stick around after that, but Mark doesn't want to go. Mark closes his eyes, knowing that if he had told Chris that this was his plan, Chris would have said no. I like you too much, Mark whispers to Eduardo's cyberkinetics, unwilling to say it out loud, and I wish you weren't a criminal. We integrate like we were made for each other. The little voice inside Mark's head (it sounds suspiciously like Chris) tells him You're a fool. His grip on Eduardo's hip tightens slightly and it's like a brand, five points of searing connection that make Eduardo moan and choke out a Mark, I- before he's whiting out.
When his systems sort themselves out, Eduardo looks down to see Mark on his knees, licking his fingers clean of what Eduardo only assumes is come. It's a pretty safe bet, though, because there's a slight smear at the corner of Mark's mouth, and Eduardo is dropping to the floor, cradling Mark's face between his hands and licking it away. They are losing themselves in this, Eduardo knows, integrating tighter and deeper than is probably wise, but he can't bring himself to care. Mark makes a noise, and Eduardo thinks that no. No, they're not doing this on the slightly dusty floor of his hallway. The bed isn't too far away and he tugs Mark along with him, pushing him back onto the bed. They begin the process of shedding clothes anew-actually managing to shed clothing this time-and then they're both naked.
Mark's cock is down Eduardo's throat, his hands fisted in the sheets, and he's completely unmarked. Eduardo marvels at that because there isn't a single surgery scar anywhere, and that has to mean that Mark is entirely organic. It's such a novel thing to Eduardo, who mostly hangs in clubs full of technopaths that have integrated with machinery in more ways than one, pretty girls like Christy that only want a cyborg to fuck, and cyborgs looking for a thrill. He's not sure how Mark fits into that spectrum, not sure how the most powerful technopath he's met winds up being the one that's entirely organic, but he can't really think about it for too long. Carefully, Eduardo works Mark open and catalogs how he falls apart, how he is so distinctly human that it hurts.
The nice thing about being a cyborg, Eduardo supposes, is that your body works differently. It means that his cock is kind of on its own time schedule and well. It would be awkward to say that Eduardo was a fucking machine, but accurate to say that his recovery time is not actually bound to very many laws of organics. No one's explained how that actually works and it's not a question Eduardo ever bothered to ask his doctors, but it's a thing that actually comes in handy sometimes. Sliding a condom on (not a necessity, but a courtesy), Eduardo lines up and then slides forward.
Mark's brain just stops. Everything is white for a split second, and then his brain starts whirring again and Mark immediately wants the white back. The white was quiet, devoid of the constant electronic chatter and data and all the other things that occupy Mark's brain at any given moment. Absently, Mark wonders if this is what sex is like for normal people. He's had it before, but mostly as a means to an end and not necessarily because he liked it or wanted it.
He craves this.
This is a drug running through his veins like water runs through a river and Mark cannot stop himself from running along with it. They fit together like Mark was constructed for Eduardo and Eduardo was molded for Mark, two parts of the same mechanism and really. Really, why does Eduardo have to be a criminal? That's not fair, because it means that Mark can't have this forever. He feels like someone who's just won the lottery and then died immediately afterward, because this is the only thing he's ever wanted and he can't have it for very long. He can have it for now, though, so Mark decides to be selfish for once in his life and take something without it being given to him freely.
It's not really taking something that isn't being given freely if Eduardo is enjoying it as much as Mark is, though. And he is, hips rocking forward in time with Mark's ragged breathing. Their fingers have found each other, and they're tangled together while they fuck. Mark comes without Eduardo actually touching him-past the sloppy blowjob that is-arching up off the sheets and sobbing brokenly. It doesn't take much more than that for Eduardo to come (again, which is probably greedy) and then he's collapsing next to Mark on the bed. Mark curls into him, and they rest like that: a pile of human and cyborg, almost but not quite a singular being.
What would you say if I said that / I want you? / Would you laugh at me / and maybe think I was crazy?
- "8bit Heart," Simon Curtis
As a general rule, Mark doesn't sleep very much. It's not because he doesn't want to, necessarily, but because he can't. Mark can't fall asleep if it's quiet. If it's quiet, then his brain never stops whirring and there's just no way to drown it out. Usually if he needs to sleep he'll put on music and that works okay, but he doesn't have music at the moment so he's not actually expecting to fall asleep curled up next to Eduardo, only Eduardo's systems aren't quite as quiet as they could be and it's kind of soothing so Mark falls into a shallow sleep next to someone for the first time that he can remember.
He wakes up at the first rays of light filtering into Eduardo's room and carefully uncurls himself from Eduardo. Looking down at Eduardo, Mark feels bad. He doesn't want to leave, but he's finished what he came for and he really shouldn't stay. Mark collects his clothes and locates Eduardo's bathroom, dressing and scanning the counter for something suitable to write a message in. Usually it's lipstick, but Eduardo doesn't have any (and if he does, Mark doesn't really want to know) so he finally grabs Eduardo's bodywash out of the shower and pours some of it onto the palm of his hand. He dips his fingertip into it and scrawls I'M SORRY across the mirror, because he is.
Mark is sorry that he can't stay, sorry that he only did it to protect Facebook, sorry that Eduardo is a criminal, sorry for a lot of circumstantial things. Exiting the bathroom, Mark glances over at Eduardo again and wonders what they would have been like if they met differently. If Eduardo had walked up to him at a Harvard party and they became friends. He shakes the thought from his head and walks over to the bed, bending down to press a kiss to Eduardo's forehead. Eduardo shifts slightly and Mark pulls away, turning and walking out of the apartment without looking back.
He doesn't go into the offices immediately, which is not unusual. It's barely past 6am and even Chris probably won't be there yet unless he just never went home. Instead, Mark walks along the streets slowly. He's sort of headed toward his apartment, but mostly he's wandering around and trying to shake the bits and pieces in him that aren't him. That's always the problem Mark has with sex when mixed with integration: for a while, he isn't himself. It happens a little with regular integration, but it's momentary and Mark can shake it off quickly. This is different.
This is an empty space inside of him that was filled with Eduardo, bits of him that aren't him bouncing around inside and muddling his brain. Chris will be able to tell that something is off thanks to his uncanny ability to always know when something is wrong, and Mark mostly just wants to be alone to sort himself out.
I am Mark Zuckerberg, he tells himself firmly, I am twenty-one years old, and I'm the only registered level seven technopath in the world. I created Facebook, both of them, and my mother is extremely proud of me. I called Erica Albright a bitch on the internet because she deserved it. I work under Chris Hughes as a hacker of dubious legality with Dustin Moskovitz. That is who I am.
Unlocking the door to his house, Mark heads in and shuts the door behind him. He walks into his computer room and sits in front of the computer running Facebook (the Winklevii one, not the CIA one) and pulls up Eduardo's page. He stares at it for a moment, hovering over the "add friend" button for a moment before dismissing the thought entirely. It would be kind of creepy and besides, Dustin would probably ask him about it when he went into the office.
Instead, he dismisses the page and pulls up the part of the code that's been giving the Winklevii problems. He actually hadn't been lying when he said that he needed to work out a bug.
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
- B. F. Skinner
Technically, Eduardo doesn't need to sleep that often, but he likes to because it keeps him from crashing in awkward places. Next to Mark, though, falling asleep just seems easy. He likes the way Mark's name feels in his mouth, likes the way everything seems easy with him, but Eduardo isn't actually that surprised when he wakes up to a cold bed. It's not like he isn't used to it, but Mark doesn't actually seem like the kind of person who feels bad about not sticking around, so the message on the mirror is surprising. Eduardo smiles fondly when he sees it scrawled on the mirror, wiping it away before he takes a shower.
There's that feeling when you wake up in the morning, though, where it's like: There was something important. Something is missing. Eduardo usually feels like that so he doesn't worry that much, and he's not quite awake yet so he's no firing on all cylinders anyway. It doesn't click into place until he's halfway through his coffee. Eduardo accesses his memory banks and runs a file search for facebook.
File not found
Sean is going to murder him. Well, metaphorically anyway. Eduardo glances at the clock and, as if summoned, Eduardo's phone buzzes to life. He answers it, taking a sip of his coffee.
"Hey, Eduardo! I'll be over in like, ten minutes. Be awake."
"I'm awake," Eduardo says, "I'll see you then, Sean."
Eduardo hangs up on Sean, not wanting to talk to him just that second, and finishes off his coffee. Once he's done, he looks at the coffee machine and sighs, pouring himself another cup. While he's drinking it, Eduardo runs a whole bunch of memory bank searches for the files, in the desperate hope that they're still there but hidden somewhere amongst the detritus of his life. They're not, and Eduardo slumps against his counter. He's trying to figure out how he's going to explain this to Sean when he doesn't even know how it happened but, because his day cannot get any worse, Sean knocks on the door just then. Eduardo winces before straightening up and walking over to let Sean in. As soon as Sean gets in, he's slinging an arm around Eduardo.
"Eduardo! How does it feel to be a criminal?"
"Sean," Eduardo says, "we have a problem."
Sean laughs, "What could the problem be? We have the program that will change the world!"
"That," Eduardo sighs, "would be the problem. We don't."
Sean stops, turning and grabbing Eduardo by the shoulders. Eduardo looks away, not wanting to meet Sean's eyes, and Sean give Eduardo a small shake.
"What do you mean by we don't have it?"
"Exactly what I said," Eduardo whispers, "we don't have it, because I lost it."
Letting go of Eduardo's shoulders, Sean turns to pace the length of the couch angrily. Eduardo watches him, tracking Sean's movements and bracing himself for whatever Sean does. It's not like Sean will hurt him, but that doesn't mean that the walls or the table or anything else in Eduardo's apartment is safe.
"How," Sean says evenly, much calmer than he appears, "do you lose an entire program?"
"I-I don't know," Eduardo stammers, "one minute it was in my memory banks and the next it wasn't! My memory's been hacked."
There's a pause in Sean's pacing, and then he turns to give Eduardo a mildly incredulous look. Unable to meet Sean's eyes again, Eduardo looks over at the short hallway that leads to his bedroom and the bathroom. A traitor, his memory bank brings up the image of Mark on his knees and Eduardo closes his eyes.
"No one can do that," Sean says, breaking Eduardo's train of thought, "you'd notice if they did."
Eduardo looks at Sean, properly meeting his eyes, "I'm 70% machine, Sean! I'm more computer than human, regular rules don't apply to me. My memory's been hacked."
There's a deafening silence in Eduardo's apartment, Eduardo and Sean facing each other and the silence between them charged and electric. Sean walks over to Eduardo, crowing him up against the kitchen counter.
"It doesn't matter. Find him," Sean bites out, "I don't care what it takes, I don't care how you do it, find Zuckerberg and bring him to me."
Once you know what it is you want to be true, instinct is a very useful device for enabling you to know that it is.
- Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Mark has been staring at his computer screen a little blankly for the past hour, and it's starting to worry Chris. Not because Mark doesn't appear to be doing anything, but because Mark doesn't appear to be integrating with his computer at all. Chris has learned to tell when Mark is actually integrated with something and when he's just thinking, and this appears to be a just thinking time.
"Mark," Chris says gently, "are you okay?"
Mark turns to look at Chris, "Chris, what do you do when someone you really like but who is probably not the best person to be in a relationship with wants to be your friend on Facebook and go out for drinks?"
Were Chris speaking to any other person on the face of Earth, he would have asked why Mark was asking him what to do. Unfortunately, he wasn't talking to any other person on the face of Earth. He was talking to Mark Zuckerberg, who tended to treat Chris like his public relations manager. It wasn't an untrue assessment of what Chris' job description concerning Mark Zuckerberg was, though, so Chris generally let it slide. He sighed and rubbed his temples.
"Will this person make you happy?"
There's a long silence where Chris thinks that maybe Mark is trying to figure out what Chris actually means by that question, which is a very Mark thing to do. He doesn't always understand that sometimes questions mean exactly what they're asking. Mark glances over at his computer.
"There's a high probability for that."
"Okay," Chris pats Mark's shoulder, "then I say you go for it."
Eduardo paces around his house and tries not to worry to much about how completely insane this new plan is. He actually doesn't even think it'll work, considering that Eduardo is 85% sure that Mark Zuckerberg (and Eduardo probably should have put together the first name Mark with the technopath thing to realize that he had picked up Mark fucking Zuckerberg) only slept with him to hack into his memory and probably wants nothing to do with him, but something tells Eduardo that he should send the message anyway.
It's about an hour later that Mark finally gets back to Eduardo, who spends three minutes looking at the unread message nervously before opening it. If this doesn't work, there's always other ways to go about kidnapping Mark, but the message only says Sure. and then lists a time and the address of a bar that Eduardo's never been to. He blinks at his screen and then reads the message again.
Maybe Mark wasn't the one who hacked into his memory? That would be impossible, though, because Eduardo didn't spend long enough with anyone after . . . Whatever. It's not actually important, Eduardo figures, because the point was to get Mark to go out drinking with him so he could slip the drug into his drink and . . . Yeah, Eduardo is not a big fan of this plan, but it's Sean's idea and Eduardo is a little bit too far into this whole mess to back out now.
The atmosphere in the bar is vastly different from the atmosphere in the club, but Mark is dressed approximately the same. Absently, Eduardo wonders whether Mark owns any other kind of clothing. He works for the CIA, though, so Eduardo assumes he has at least some formal clothes. He doesn't have very long to think about that, though, because Mark grins when he spots Eduardo and walks over. Mark has a beer and Eduardo has a virgin Bloody Mary. He doesn't mention the virgin part to Mark, and when Mark is about two beers in, Eduardo slips the drug into his drink.
Mark is pretty much dead weight by the time Eduardo calls Sean to come pick him up, and Eduardo whispers I'm sorry before manhandling Mark into the car.
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
- Isaac Asimov
The first thing Mark realizes when he wakes up is that he isn't anywhere familiar and none of the electronics that he's integrated with are anywhere near him except-
"You're awake!"
-Eduardo. Trying to focus past the haze that is currently fogging up his brain, Mark manages to locate Eduardo not too far away from where he's shackled to a chair. His hands are free though, which Mark thinks is a little stupid, only then he notices. There's a table in front of him, he's been tied to the chair, the chair is too heavy for Mark to move, and his upper body is basically the only thing he can move. Not a good position.
Mark glares, "You kidnapped me."
"Sorry," Eduardo rubs at the back of his neck, "Sean's orders. He wants Facebook."
"He can't have it," Mark says almost immediately, "Mostly because the code is so complex that I doubt he could find anyone who could understand it, but also because Sean is a jackass and he's still mad that I shut down Napster."
"I'm sorry. Are you hungry?"
For a second, Mark is confused, and then he sees the tray that Eduardo is carrying. It has what looks like a plate of fries and a protein shake on it, which makes Mark assume that they're somewhere that Eduardo spends a lot of time, because that's cyborg food. Or maybe they think Mark is a cyborg, which would be a kind of stupid but not an unreasonable assumption. Eduardo sets the tray of food down in front of Mark and Mark pushes it away. Eduardo sighs.
"I said I was sorry for kidnapping you. Please eat."
"The system was right about you," Mark leans forward on the table, even though it makes the rope cut into his stomach a little painfully, "you are way too fucking polite."
Mark isn't entirely sure how a nice guy like Eduardo got caught up with Sean Parker. Sean Parker is many things, chief among them a criminal. At least, that's what Mark calls him. Sean probably calls himself something less abrasive, like business tycoon or entrepreneur, but fundamentally he's a criminal. He takes other people's work and twists it to fit into his own greedy plans. Also he didn't invent Napster, which makes him a fucking liar.
Eduardo is still standing on the other side of the table, like he's waiting for Mark to eat the food, and Mark just glares at him. Finally, after a few minutes, Eduardo sighs again and takes the tray away. Once he's out of the room, Mark closes his eyes and tries to pick up on nearby signal lines. They're all far enough away that Mark can't actually distinguish the colors, so he just stretches and grabs one at random. He needs a computer connected to wi-fi, but the first thing he gets is a security system. There aren't very many computers in the general vicinity, hooked up to wi-fi or not, so Mark just keeps stretching farther out and grabbing until he finds what he wants. He finds some computer with internet access eventually and Mark quickly tells it that he wants to send an email, unsure of how long he'll be able to stay connected. The computer is more than happy to send it for Mark.
The signal is distant, and Mark is stretched thin. Once the computer is done sending his message, Mark lets go of the signal and slowly makes his way back to reality. He's not sure how much time has passed since he started grabbing signal lines, because there isn't really such a thing as "time" when you're integrated. It's kind of draining to be stretched as thin as Mark was, though.
Eduardo says: "Do you always sleep this much?"
"It depends," Mark snorts, "I've never been drugged before."
It doesn't come out quite as scathing as Mark had intended, but Eduardo winces slightly anyway. He drops a plate of food in front of Mark, and Mark has to eat it because he used up a significant amount of energy stretching himself out and trying to send a distress email.
Eduardo smiles sheepishly, "Sorry it's not, you know, actual food."
Mark swallows his mouthful of fries, "It's fine. Why are you doing this?"
"Sean asked for my help," Eduardo says, like that explains anything, "He has a way of being too persuasive."
"You didn't have to do this," Mark picks at the tray of fries, "
"He's like family," Eduardo sounds sad, "and I kind of owe him my life."
There are a lot of things that Mark wants to say to that, but he doesn't say any of them. Eduardo doesn't look like he really wants to talk about it anyway, so Mark drops the subject. Instead, he slowly works his way through the french fries and the protein shake and waits for Chris and Dustin to do their jobs and come rescue him.
"How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?"
- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
It takes two days before anyone realizes that Mark is gone. This has less to do with the fact that no one cares and more to do with the fact that Mark disappears quite frequently for days on end without telling anyone. Chris has gotten to the point where he sort of assumes that if Mark didn't come in, it's because he was coding something and forgot that his sense of time is ridiculously warped when he's integrated. They only realize that isn't the case because Dustin gets an email.
I was kidnapped. I don't actually know where I am, but it's probably somewhere near Eduardo Saverin's apartment. You should come get me, so I can stick Sean Parker in jail for real this time.
When Chris asks how Dustin knows it's actually Mark sending the email and not someone else, Dustin raises an eyebrow and points to the email address. Which, okay. There actually isn't one, and that would be freakier if it didn't happen quiet often around Mark. He'd tried to explain how he did it, once, only it didn't make any sense to Dustin or Chris so they just took it as another one of the weird little things Mark could make a computer do.
"Who the fuck is Eduardo Saverin and why has he kidnapped Mark?"
Chris leans over Dustin's shoulder, peering at the screen, "That's like asking why the sky is blue, Dustin, everyone wants to kidnap Mark. Did you Google him?"
"Yeah," Dustin pulls up the search, "but he doesn't seem to have any reason to kidnap Mark. The guy's barely older than Mark."
Chris looks at Dustin, "Did you Facebook him?"
Dustin is quiet for a second, "I probably should have done that, huh?"
The Look that Chris gives Dustin is mostly there must be some top-secret reason why you were hired with a healthy dose of Dustin, I cannot deal with you right now. Dustin shrinks a little under it and quickly runs a Facebook search of Eduardo Saverin using the picture on his Facebook page. Sometimes, when Dustin has to do Facebook searches, the wording gets complicated. He blames Mark for insisting that the facial recognition program be named Facebook too. So now Dustin runs Facebook searches using Facebook photos while he's browsing Facebook on his phone using the new Facebook app. Facebook Facebook Facebook. Facebook. It stops looking like a word after a while.
Sometimes, Dustin suspects that Mark might be a little bit crazy. Actually, Dustin knows that Mark is a little bit crazy, but he suspects that Mark might love Facebook (either of them. both of them.) more than pretty much anything else that exists. His computer gives a cheerful search completed! and Dustin starts skimming the results of the search. Absently, he wishes that Mark weren't kidnapped because Dustin really sucks at this part of their jobs. He'd much rather be out catching the bad guys, not reading about them.
I'm not your robot. / Stop telling me I'm part of the big machine. / I'm breaking free.
- "Robot," Miley Cyrus
Sean shakes Mark awake again, and Mark stares at him in a way Eduardo knows means he's not fully there. It's kind of distressing to see Mark like that, and Eduardo doesn't know if he's okay or not. He wants to check Mark over, see if he's okay, but Sean's already sitting in front of Mark. Eduardo should probably go do something else, but he's not sure if he trusts Sean to be alone with Mark, so he leans against the wall and watches. He can tell that Mark is purposefully ignoring Sean and Sean is getting increasingly frustrated, so when Sean raises his hand, Eduardo catches it.
"No. You said you weren't going to hurt him."
Sean jerks his hand out of Eduardo's grip, "Stay out of this, Eduardo. You've already done your part."
"No," Eduardo repeats, "You're not going to hurt him."
"Or what? What could you possibly do?"
Eduardo smiles, dangerous and sure, "I can turn us in."
There's a heavy and tense silence in the room. Sean seems wary, like he's not sure what to think of Eduardo. Like he's not sure if Eduardo is bluffing or not. Eduardo sees Mark looking at him, eyes suddenly sharp and focused, like he's analyzing what Eduardo's doing too. It would be suicide to turn them in, but it's not actually an empty threat. There are things more important than repaying debt.
The thing Mark is learning about Eduardo Saverin is that he's . . . unique. It's not just the fact that he's 70% cyberkinetic, it's not the fact that he's too nice for his own good. It's that, unlike most people, Mark can't actually predict what he's going to do. For instance, Eduardo is currently facing off against Sean, who he feels some sort of familial obligation to. Mark would have never guessed that Eduardo would do that, because . . . He's threatening to turn them in, and that's pure insanity in Mark's opinion.
When a cyborg commits a serious crime, their cyberkinetics get deactivated. Conspiracy is definitely a serious crime, and just. It makes Mark slightly ill to think about Eduardo being deactivated. It makes him ill to think about anyone being deactivated, but Mark knows he'll have to be in the room when Dustin deactivates Eduardo and Mark can't handle deactivations.
If Eduardo is going to do something unexpected, then Mark is going to have to do something unexpected too. There aren't any rules to the game they're playing anymore.
"You wouldn't," Sean says, but he sounds unsure, "that would be condemning yourself to death."
"According to most people," Eduardo shrugs, "I should already be dead. What would the difference be?"
The difference between Eduardo and Sean has always been that Sean is a leader, and Eduardo is a follower. Sean would come up with the crazy ideas, grand schemes and Eduardo would raise an eyebrow but follow along with his schemes. That's the way it's always been, but the tables have obviously shifted. Sean isn't one to take insubordination lightly, but he's actually not sure about the way Eduardo will react to anything anymore. He used to know, when they were younger, and used to have Eduardo wrapped around his finger. This Eduardo is one that he doesn't understand. He sees Eduardo's gaze shift over to Mark, and Sean turns to look at Mark too. Mark looks back at him, every bit of the smug, self-assured genius that Sean remembers.
"It's fine," Mark says suddenly, "he won't have to do that. I'll give you the code."
It takes them four hours to locate Mark, because they send an agent out to Eduardo Saverin's apartment, and there's no one there. There's a moment where no one's sure what they should be looking next until Chris snaps his fingers. He points at Dustin, who waits patiently while Chris tries to formulate a sentence.
"You said Eduardo's family was rich."
"Yes, but he lost most of-"
"Check to see if he owns any property."
Dustin doesn't question Chris, just turns back to his computer and filters the Facebook search information down to the things about property and addresses. Eduardo apparently still owns a house on the very outskirts of New York, and his last credit card purchase was not too far from there. Dustin relays this information to Chris and then they're both grabbing their guns and heading toward that address.
Eduardo shakes his head, staring at Mark in disbelief. Mark, who was so adamant that Sean couldn't have the code less than a day ago, is willingly giving it up. It doesn't make any sense to Eduardo, but then again . . . Eduardo shakes his head again.
"You don't have to do this, Mark."
"It's okay," Mark shrugs, "it's not like he'll be able to do anything with the code if I give it to him."
Sean grins, wolfish and awful, and he leaves the room for a second. Eduardo stays, though, staring at Mark. Mark stares back, lips slowly curving into a smile.
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."
There's a car in the driveway of the house that looks like it was parked recently, and Eduardo can't drive so it's probably safe to assume that Eduardo is there with Sean Parker. Carefully, Chris and Dustin sneak up on the house. The locks are all manual, so Dustin has to pick them, and then they're in.
The house isn't particularly large, but there's no one living in any of the rooms that Dustin and Chris check. The kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, and the bedrooms are all clear. There's only one room left in the house, and both Chris and Dustin slowly make their way toward it. The last room in the house is some sort of study, and Chris and Dustin glance at each other before they kick the door in.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
- Isaac Asimov
Mark's got Sean's laptop in front of him and about forty lines of completely innocuous but functional lines of code on the screen, having been untied so he could work properly. They don't actually do anything, and Mark is immensely grateful that Chris and Dustin chose that moment to bust in.
Eduardo doesn't fight: when Dustin tells him to stand down and put his arms behind his head, he does. Sean, however, fights. It's the one thing that Sean isn't very good at, giving up, so it's not really a surprise that he puts up a pretty good fight. Having secured Eduardo, Dustin leaves him with Mark and goes to help Chris. Together, Chris and Dustin manage to restrain Sean somehow. Mark keeps glancing between Sean and Eduardo, and he seems nervous, fidgeting in a way that doesn't mesh well with the picture of Mark that Eduardo has in his head. Granted, it's not a very thorough picture, but Eduardo knows enough about Mark to know that this isn't his typical behavior.
While Chris is restraining Sean, Dustin walks over to Eduardo, and he stops about a foot away, just looking Eduardo over. Eduardo is pretty sure he knows what'll happen next. They tell you when you have the cyberkinetics installed. They tell you when you go in for check-ups. They tell you when you register as a cyborg. They tell you when you want to upgrade. They tell you over and over again, until you can recite it from memory.
If you commit a serious crime, your cyberkinetics will be deactivated. Life is a privilege, not a right.
So Eduardo knows that he'll be deactivated. He also knows that he probably won't survive it, even though deactivation doesn't actually mean you're killing a person. It does mean that the person isn't completely functional anymore, and Mark doesn't think about what he's doing. Dustin is about to deactivate Eduardo and Mark steps between the two of them, holding his arms out.
"No," he says, "It's not his fault. Eduardo had nothing to do with this."
"Mark," Dustin says, "Mark, he kidnapped you."
"Eduardo," Mark says, danger laced through his voice, "had nothing to do with this. Even if you say he did, I can erase every shred of evidence that he did. It won't even take me ten minutes."
Chris ties the rope around Sean's hands a little more viciously than absolutely necessary, "No. No he has to be deactivated, Mark, you know the rules."
Mark raises an eyebrow, and Chris wants to let this slide, but the problem is that it's against the rules and the rules exist for a reason. The rules exist so that people get what they deserve and Chris sighs because the problem with Mark is that he's more like a machine than he realizes. He doesn't have a clear concept of good and bad, sees the world as a binary of things that are bad for Facebook and things that are harmless or useful to Facebook.
The problem is that the rules don't apply to Mark, because he's got the entire world at his fingertips and all the databases like him best. If it wants to make a person disappear, he can do it. Chris forces Sean down into one of the chairs, not caring if it causes him pain.
"I can't really stop you from doing what you want, can I?"
"No," Mark smirks, "It's not like the government will object, because they know better."
Chris sees Dustin wince, knows that they're both recalling the time Mark shut the government's entire infrastructure down because they wanted to give Facebook some fancy codename and he objected. Mark brought the system back online after ten seconds, everything completely as it was, but people mostly let Mark do whatever he want after that. This will be no different, so Chris just sighs.
"You are going to have to fill out so much paperwork to get this cleared."
"Just be glad I'm actually doing the paperwork," Mark says, "I could just fix the whole thing without ever doing the actual paperwork."
There's really nothing that Chris can say to that, because it's entirely true. Mark has a horrible habit of getting results via means of incredibly dubious legality. As in only marginally less illegal than hacking the Pentagon, but most of his infractions slide because Mark is working for the government instead of against them and if he can get the information, then most of the higher-ups aren't particularly concerned about how he gets the information.
Still. Chris and Mark have their customary silent eyebrow negotiations before Chris mutters fine and grabs Sean by the elbow, all but dragging him out of the room. Dustin is doing the same with Sean's other elbow, and while Dustin and Chris are escorting Sean out of the room, Eduardo walks over and hugs Mark.
"Thank you," he whispers, somewhere between crying and gratitude.
Mark isn't sure what to do, because people don't really touch him and he can't really think because he's not expecting it so there's a sudden overload of information Mark isn't prepared to parse and he completely freezes. Eduardo seems to realize that he probably shouldn't have hugged Mark quite so spontaneously, though, because he lets Mark go after a few seconds.
"Sorry. Sorry, I forgot that the more places you're touching me, the more information you get at once."
"It's an easy mistake," Mark says, "Um. You have to come with us. You and I have to fill out paperwork."
"Sure," Eduardo says, "Yeah, sure."
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