Chapter Text
“I made up my mind, if you’ll join me.”
MePhone so badly wanted to forget everything, now that he knew the truth. Even in the show that he built, the world that he built, MePhone couldn’t escape Cobs’ puppeteering hands. And, if Cobs was going to take everything away from him anyways, he’d rather enjoy the ignorant bliss that was not knowing why. How much simpler were the days of collecting candy and going to space, never seriously questioning the waves of Meeple devices that came to kill him, and never worrying about what his existence truly meant.
MePad had been so idealistic in that moment, objecting immediately. MePad wouldn’t forfeit his memories, and he wouldn’t abandon the contestants as MePhone so easily could. He’d never met Cobs, sure, but he knew how dangerous their creator was. The difference between him and MePhone was that he didn’t cling to escapism or temporary solutions.
He was going to stand by the contestants, protect them, no matter the cost. MePad couldn’t be certain what Cobs was capable of, but he knew if everyone worked together, he would be defeated.
When MePad had left the Gemory Cave, he left knowing MePhone was likely going to wipe his own memory again, overwhelmed by the intensity of the situation. He had refused MePhone’s “offer;” if Cobs was going to hurt the contestants, MePad would go out fighting, for their sake. He could not comply, could not forget, and could not surrender.
As fate would have it, however, MePad would eventually take MePhone up on his offer after all.
–❖–
MePad Mini slowly opened his eyes, immediately greeted by intense light and an ache in his left side. The ceiling above him gave him little clue as to where he was; he couldn’t recognize it. Like this, all he was aware of was the ceiling, and that he was laying on a cool surface. Was he laying on the floor, or a table? His feet were dangling… MePad Mini tried to focus on his body, and more importantly, sitting up. That proved to be difficult, and apparently, he had alerted the attention of someone else in the room with his unsuccessful attempt.
“Oh– You’re awake, shoot, hold on–!” the voice called out from behind him. Mini ceased his movements, and awaited further instruction.
A few seconds later, there was a presence beside him, and a hand wrapped behind his back. Presented in front of him, he saw the assumed owner of that voice – a glass vial, filled with some green liquid, and… a cork on her head.
With her help, the Meeple was unplugged and sitting upright. His body felt so strange in a way that was difficult to describe – something just felt off, internally. (He wasn’t yet sure what he looked like, externally.)
“Golly, I knew you were going to boot up soon, but I thought– thought I had more time…” the vial said under her breath, before shaking herself. “How are you feeling?”
How was he feeling? Emotions were… Well, he felt incredibly neutral at the moment, if not a little confused. Physically?
“...I feel sore,” MePad Mini finally answered. There were so many curiosities in his mind; nothing felt quite like it should. One question at a time, he supposed. “Where are we?”
“Oh! You’re in my no-longer-secret laboratory!” The scientist had a strained smile. “And yes, I assume you’ll feel that way for a while. That’s why I came over to help, uh, besides– anyways. I don’t recommend over-exerting yourself for a while. Maybe ever.”
He had no intention of doing so. Meeple devices were not known for their durability, something told him. There was an odd air of tension that Mini could pick up on regardless, but couldn't necessarily grasp.
“You have yet to introduce yourself. How should I refer to you?”
The woman flinched, before glancing at his casing. The bags under her eyes were a bit more obvious, with that look on her face.
“You don’t remember my name…” It seemed like, once again, she was speaking to herself rather than him. “Do you… remember anything…?”
Now that she’d asked, MePad Mini was forced to realize it. He couldn’t recall anything; his mind was fuzzy, like static clouded over it. Surely, if he had sustained an injury, or perhaps just overworked himself, he would remember such a thing. The glass vial in front of him – her presence felt somewhat reassuring, but at the same time, she was foreign and new. If not for the ache in his body, and her words, he might’ve assumed this was his first time booting up. (Unless he had somehow been injured before he even awoke.)
After some time and consideration, Mini simply answered, “I do not.”
The scientist was visibly displeased with this answer, although it seemed she wasn’t completely caught off-guard. She left his range of sight briefly, before returning with a set of index cards in her trembling hands. She cleared her throat, mentally and emotionally preparing herself.
“You are MePad, or uh, rather MePad Mini, a device constructed by the Meeple corporation.” That much, MePad Mini already knew; that information was within his files. But if Test Tube defaulted to calling him just “MePad,” he saw no harm in doing the same. It felt comfortable. “For the majority of your life, you worked alongside MePhone4 as his assistant, hosting the show Inanimate Insanity. Due to very complicated and frankly convoluted circumstances, you lost your life defending him and the show’s contestants.”
Her eyes darted up, making sure MePad was following along. He said nothing, and so she swapped to her next card, continuing.
“I, Test Tube, was one of those contestants. After you were killed, I took it upon myself to repair and restore you to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, by… by the time I began, it was too late to fix certain parts; I learned that some of your memory components were damaged. Therefore, there was a probability that you would wake up with retrograde amnesia, despite the attempted repairs.” She paused again, swapping to another card. She stared at the paper for a moment, before looking toward the floor, and her arm dropped to her side.
At this angle, MePad could see the card she had swapped to was blank.
“I’m… sorry. When I sought out to repair you, I wanted to bring back all of you. The first time I did this – I had good intentions, but I… I had purposely blocked out someone’s memories. And even if those weren’t truly their own… I didn’t want to make the same mistake with you.” She let out a forlorn sigh. “But… I knew there was a possibility your memory was damaged. I… was in over my head.”
Silence followed her sentence.
MePad wasn’t sure where to even begin, processing this moment.
–❖–
Curious as MePad was, Test Tube had plenty to say about his hardware while she ran diagnostics on him.
Apparently, his repair had been a complicated and time-consuming one. Data corruption, damaged circuitry, aged and worn down parts – these had all been obstacles. His battery had been the biggest challenge to overcome. MePad was quite old for a Meeple device, as it turned out, and he was big and bulky, built by a company that didn’t enjoy making their devices easy to repair to begin with. It had taken Test Tube a long time just to find the tools and parts necessary for this project, let alone actually get to work on it. Getting access to his body had been an entire ordeal within itself.
It seemed the unspoken question was now, had it really been worth the trouble?
MePad was thankful for her efforts, whatever that was worth. A hopeful part of him believed that, maybe, his memory could still be recovered, that perhaps there was just an alternative solution Test Tube had overlooked. Had MePad always been optimistic? Were aspects of his personality hardcoded into him? Or had MePad learned to be more pessimistic over the course of his life? Now, he had none of the lived experience to know which outlook was the appropriate one.
He would ask later, he decided. Test Tube seemed very focused right now, and stressed out.
“Well, your systems seem to be running as well as they can be…” Test Tube said, squinting at a notepad she had in her hand. “I made sure to replace all your damaged parts, so hypothetically, you should be able to function as usual… for the most part.”
MePad was still sitting on the operating table, which was a bit awkward – he felt a bit restless, now that he was awake – but he was happy to hear the positive feedback. “That’s great news! You’ve shown yourself to be quite intelligent, to take on such an intense project.”
Something about what he’d said must’ve been interesting because he could hear Test Tube write something else down. Then, with a satisfying click of her pen, she said, “Why don’t we try out walking, hm?”
With some help getting down from the table, MePad immediately realized standing and walking was quite uncomfortable for him. Not painful, but there was some resistance in his joints, and his movements weren’t quite as smooth as Test Tube’s. It was to be expected, he supposed, since the lower part of his body was such an amalgamation of parts.
The scientist’s hand lingered on his side as he took hesitant steps. It was a comforting feeling.
“Your walking isn’t exactly perfect, but it could be a lot worse,” she said, speaking objectively. Then a thought came to her, the glass vial’s expression shifting to one of excitement. “Oh! MePad, one of your unique abilities is your capability for teleportation! Why don’t you give that a try? Not, um, sure how much I can actually guide you through that, but – it’s worth a shot.”
Luckily, MePad would need no guidance, as teleporting seemed to come to him as an instinct. He thought of a spot within the lab – his mind imagined the table he’d just been resting on minutes ago – and with a magenta-colored flash of light, he was right in front of it. He had wanted to be on top of the table, but at least now he knew he could still teleport. He turned around, facing Test Tube once again. She seemed pleased. That was good. So far, she’d looked at him with nothing but heartache and defeat.
“Excellent! I really didn’t want to have to recreate Cobs’s teleportation technology, not that I theoretically can’t, just that it would’ve been time consuming and difficult to test. So, it’s good to see those parts are working normally,” Test Tube said.
Cobs. This was the first time this name was mentioned to him, and yet, it didn’t feel quite unfamiliar. A quick search and – ah, yes. Steve Cobs, the CEO of Meeple Corp, the company which had produced the MePad Mini. Directly or indirectly, Cobs was his creator. So then, why wasn’t he here? Or more precisely, why wasn’t MePad at MeepleHQ?
For some reason, this line of questioning didn’t feel out of the ordinary, despite the unique situation. MePad didn’t dwell on the thoughts too long. Test Tube was talking again, and that felt more worthy of attention.
“Back on Inanimate Insanity, it was typically your responsibility to display the viewer votes! Viewers would vote for uh, what challenges we’d do, or who’d be eliminated, and such. So, I’d just like to make sure your ability to show images and assets is still in working order. Try, hm…” she rubbed where her chin would be before snapping her fingers. “Try displaying a loading gif! I know you have at least one of those in your files.”
Yet another simple, instinctual task It took MePad longer than what was likely usual to find the gif and display it, sure. Overall, however, he seemed to be able to perform all of the tasks he normally could.
Things weren’t perfect, of course. MePad doubted he had been this inefficient, before. His legs were probably going to cause him some aches and pains, and picking things up while balancing on one foot was harder for him than seemed reasonable for someone built with no arms. He might be prone to overheating more quickly, he’d been warned. Otherwise, the only thing holding him back was his memory.
MePad was still pleased with the outcome, despite how forlorn Test Tube was about it when she jotted stuff down. It was a miracle he was even alive, and he should be thankful for that. It was hard to feel bad about what he had lost, considering he had nothing to compare it to.
–❖–
Test Tube wasn’t so optimistic. After all the hardware and software tests, she could feel confident that MePad was operational and wasn’t in significant pain and wasn’t dead and was here, alive, in front of her, and her project hadn’t been completely for nothing; yet, knowing all of this didn’t do much to eliminate the dread that filled her. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to do now. She had desperately hoped that MePad would’ve woken up as the same Meeple device he had died as; she had known there was a chance of memory loss and had formed a short-term plan, but she hadn’t thought about all of the consequences of such a possibility.
Theoretically, all that was required of her now was to introduce everyone to MePad, explain that she had repaired him, and be on her way. Focus on new projects, and leave this miserable one behind. But MePad wasn’t completely fixed; her project hadn’t gone according to plan. MePad couldn’t feel the same affection for everyone he had held before his death; they were all strangers to him now. He was a stranger to them now, just wearing the face of someone they’d known.
That wasn’t even factoring in the possibility that MePad hadn’t wanted to come back, that he’d made peace with his death in his final moments. Had she, perhaps, went against the wishes of someone who’d passed, all to selfishly relieve herself of grief?
Test Tube had messed up, once again. She’d soiled the memory of a dead person, once again.
She could imagine the reactions from everyone, if and when she told them what she had done. Oh, golly. She couldn’t do this on her own.
If there was someone she could trust with this, it was Fan. He wasn’t exactly the best at keeping secrets or staying calm, but she at least knew he’d be able to help her figure this out – figure out what to do with MePad now that he was awake.
She’d have to break the news to him first. And she could predict exactly how he’d respond.
–❖–
“YOU DID WHAT!?”
Yup, that was about the reaction she was expecting.
“Look, I thought this would work! And technically it did! Just not to one hundred percent capacity! He’s still back from the dead!” Test Tube quickly defended herself.
MePad was sitting on the floor of the lab, silently witnessing this whole altercation, blinking passively.
“So he’s not another robot replica, right? I mean, Bow was really upset when she found out about Bot, we really should’ve thought better on that – you wouldn’t do that again, right!?” the paper hand fan, “Fan,” said. Was everyone just named after the objects that they were? MePad had such a name, but then, he was a commercial product. These were people – if Steve Cobs had a real name, wouldn’t these people have real names too?
Well, it made it easier to remember who was who, at least.
Test Tube was visibly fed up with this conversation already. “No, he’s not a replica, he’s the same body, mostly the same parts – it’s the real MePad, I’m telling you!”
Fan was fidgeting with his phone in his hands as he paced around. “Then he should tell us something only the real MePad would know! And, well, things we know too, but you could’ve told him what to say before making me come here– and most of his life was filmed on the show anyways, so I’m not really sure if this would wo–”
“FAN!” Test Tube interrupted. “Would you let me actually explain everything first!? We can’t ask him what he knows, he–he doesn’t remember!”
With that, Fan stopped in his tracks, and looked at her. “W-What?”
“You saw how badly damaged MePad was! I tried Fan, I really did, but–when his battery exploded, a lot of parts died with it. I was able to replace and repair the whole, but, the data, the memory, it…”
Finally, for the first time during all of this, Fan looked MePad square in the eyes as he spoke. “He’s gone…”
How strange was it, for him? To be looking at the face of someone who should’ve been dead? Who, by some definitions, was still dead? MePad tried his best to give a sympathetic look.
“MePad doesn’t remember anything, about the show, or about us, or MePhone, or Cobs,” Test Tube said. “I wanted to bring him back, all of him, but instead, I’ve just… made a glorified replacement.”
Fan rubbed her back, giving her a sad look. “You tried your best, Test Tube…”
It felt weird to be spoken about like this. This person, who had dedicated so much time to help MePad, was currently mourning him, right in front of his eyes.
He tried his best to offer some semblance of reassurance. It was the right thing to do. “I may not remember you, Test Tube, but from this day I have spent with you, I can tell you that you appear to be a hardworking, dedicated person. I apologize that my repair caused you so much trouble, but I believe your efforts are impressive nonetheless. Perhaps, there are still other means to restore my memory outside of hardware replacement.”
It was a solid point, MePad felt. He didn’t know how exactly one would go through restoring such data loss, but if Test Tube was so brilliant as to have repaired him so thoroughly, then surely, his memory couldn’t be too far out of reach. That said, even if his memory could never be recovered, he would continue to be proud of the scientist’s determination.
“I… I’m not giving up, just yet,” Test Tube said in an unconvincing tone. “I want to believe something can still be done. But… uh, in the meantime, there are… other obstacles we’ll have to overcome. Namely, what are we going to do with you? How are we going to tell everyone you’re back? That is, if you even want to stay on this island…”
Well. MePad’s frame of reference on the world was quite small, right now. “I would prefer to stay here on Inanimate Island, perhaps until I have a better understanding of my situation.” He hadn’t been told their exact location, but having a built in map told him all he needed. The island was distinctly isolated from other landforms, anyways.
The scientist mumbled under her breath, “Then I have to address it…” She was quick to tweak her expression, which had momentarily faltered, but that smile of hers was getting lower and lower as the evening drew on. “That narrows things down. Do we keep you here in the lab, or do we rip off the adhesive bandage and tell everyone you’re back?”
Was she being rhetorical, or was she genuinely asking his opinion? “The decision is ultimately yours, but I do believe informing everyone sooner rather than later will lead to the best outcome. It would be best if they learned about my return in an intentional manner rather than an accidental one.”
“Right. Of course, you’re right,” Test Tube nodded, but didn’t say anything more. Her eyes danced away.
Fan fidgeted a little more before perking up a little. His smile felt more authentic. “Oh! We can talk to the mansion folks about hosting an announcement there about it. I mean, it would make sense. It is called MePad Mansion. It just makes sense!”
MePad had a whole mansion named after him…?
“You’re right… Yes, that’d be a good way to inform everyone all at once, instead of trying to do it individually. Uh, assuming MePad won’t be upset at being put on display like that.” She turned and glanced at the man in question, who was still sitting on the floor. She was looking for excuses to delay this, MePad realized.
“Yes, that sounds appropriate. It will provide me with an opportunity to re-familiarize myself with everyone I once knew,” MePad said, before adding, “I know you must be nervous, but I believe being honest and upfront will make things less difficult in the long run.”
Test Tube looked at him in the eyes, rather than simply glaring at his left side, as she’d frequently been doing. Her face tense and in thought. She nodded again, with more confidence this time.
“We’ll come up with a plan. If everything goes right, we should be able to tell everyone tomorrow morning.” That notepad of hers presented itself once again, and with that, Test Tube and Fan started discussing amongst themselves just exactly how they’d go about this.
It gave MePad some time to ruminate as he sat. It was rude to tune out what they were saying, but then, it seemed like they knew what they were doing and didn’t require his input.
So much to reflect on. Here he was, essentially a refurbished, factory reset machine. A machine that, to his understanding, was long outdated, long past his prime. He wasn’t ungrateful for Test Tube’s efforts by any means, but it was puzzling how much this meant to her.
Would Cobs have put such time and resources towards fixing his old MePad Mini? Would MePhone4, which had supposedly been his employer, be happy to know that his assistant was able to perform his duties again, even if his emotional attachment to the show itself had been forgotten?
Out of all the questions collecting in MePad’s mind, there was one he couldn’t ignore.
“Excuse me,” MePad interrupted. The two objects politely turned and let him speak. “If I may ask, where is Cobs, and MePhone4? You’ve mentioned them a few times now. Why are they not here, if they were so significant to me?”
Test Tube let out a sort of smug laugh. “Oh, hah, you don’t have to worry about Cobs anymore,” she said rather dismissively. “He’s gone. MePhone… left the island. We don’t really have a way to contact him.”
“Which drives me crazy, because, come on! It’s MePhone! He’s always been here, and he did so much, and now he’s just gone!? Didn’t even leave his phone number?” Fan thought out loud.
“Oh,” MePad said, neutrally. He felt like there should be a more in-depth explanation. But then, what did he know? Test Tube fixed him. He wasn’t in a position to question her. She was doing all of this for him.
“Don’t worry about all that. We’ll fill you in as we go along,” she said, before hesitantly reaching out to help him off the floor. “For now, why don’t we take a trip to the mansion?”