Disclaimer: South Park and all characters in it are copyright Matt Stone and Trey Parker, not me.
A/N:
I won't lie. I was inspired by cjmarie's 100 Words of Stan and Kyle (hint: Go read it!)
Only, while cjmarie was blackmailed by a friend, I was blackmailed by… myself? I guess. :D
I just felt like doing a 100 theme thing, only making it K-Squared oriented.
YAY!
Please, please, please REVIEW. I love reviews. And I love reviewers. And I will send you telepathic cookies if you do. :P
Title: The K Squared 100
Author: Zoshi the ConfusedRating: Ranging, mostly PG-PG13
Category: South Park
Genre: General/Romance
Collection may contain: Shounen-Ai/Boy Love, Violence, Adult Situations, Swearing
Theme 1: Computerized
"Hey, Kyle… you awake?"
A hum starts up somewhere in the room. Kenny speaks softly, but I hear him as clearly as if he spoke straight into my ear.
Maybe he did, I muse.
The klak-klak-klak of the internal fan starts up, revolving slowly, until the blades reach the necessary speed. The klaks recede as it settles into its familiar rhythm.
"I'm awake."
I feel the words rather than hear them. Synapses, synapses, all wires now. I hear Kenny hum a wordless tune as the hard drives kick in. Their electric hum joins the one of the CPU and that of the generator by the wall. A few clatters in the back of one of the drives catches my attention; that can't be good, I'll have to ask Kenny to get a technician in here.
"How long have you been up?" I ask. Halfway through the sentence I pick up the vibrations instead of just feeling the words flicker through the wires. I give a mental shudder at the sound of them, halting and mechanical, in the rooms cool air.
"Not too long…" I hear his yawn and know he's lying.
"Sorry." I say as the camera feed finally fires up. "I didn't mean to be out for so long."
"Its not your fault." Kenny grins up at the camera in front of him. There's one more to the side by the window, and another on the table to the right of him. That one's feed is flickering, and I hear the hard drives fire up again as impulses shoot through wires. They still haven't been able to fix everything.
"So, whaddya wanna do today?" Kenny asks, leaning back in the office chair he's sitting on and twirling around slowly.
"Go for a walk in the park." I answer. There's a second before Kenny laughs, twirling the chair around to face back at the camera.
"You know, I always expect something different…" He grins, putting his arms behind his head.
"You should know better by now, its been what…" I pause, pretending to think. Useless really, the information pops up and through my consciousness before I can really focus on it.
"Ten decades?" Kenny says thoughtfully, then winks in the direction of the camera. "Give or take a decade."
I laugh. The sound is just as mechanical and halting as my voice, but Kenny's smile deepens.
"Since when have we started counting decades instead of years?" I ask, but I already know the answer.
"Since you got your brain transferred into a fish tank?" He says jokingly, tapping his knuckles against the side of the large glass tube.
"Probably…" I answer, watching him. The cameras record every moment, every second. It's a safety for me, a sort of security blanket. Each time he dies I replay the moments, pause, rewind. I can see it all again. It helps the hours pass until he comes back.
"I have to say Kyle, for going on over-one-hundred, your brain's still looking sexy as ever…" Kenny gives me his best leer. I stay silent for a moment, focusing on him. His blue eyes, still bright, still so full of life, His blond hair, longer than it had been when he was younger but still as unruly as ever. His roguish charm never left him; he's still as wild as he ever was, if his deaths have anything to say about it.
"I don't understand you, Kenny…" I say. I want to say it softly, but there's only so much a computerized voice can do.
"Whaddya mean? I mean, yeah, taking a brain to bed would be awkward, but hey…" He shrugs, chuckling.
The hum of the processor lowers a little; its an active effort on my part, to try to pause for a moment in more than just appearance.
"You should've found someone else by now. You should've found dozens of someone-else's." I say after a moment.
Kenny is in the middle of a spin on the chair when I speak, and by the time he turns around he has a highly quizzical look on his face.
"Are you kidding me?" He asks, and for once he sounds entirely serious. "Who else would… Who else would stick by someone who's never going to really die? Who else is going to be around forever?"
I stay quiet. It's a valid argument, I'm forced to admit. The hum-whir-klik of the hard drives going into motion rises. I'm sifting through the years, decades, of our time. The physical memories are a small percentage by now; for so long my memories have been of watching him, talking to him, distanced forever by the limitations of metal and wires and a fish tank.
"…but don't you ever want out, Kenny?" I ask, seeing all those images flashing through my conscious mind. "Don't you ever want someone… someone you can touch?"
His face falls. His eyes are sad. I want to say something, but I don't know what. A moment passes, then he leans forward, lays his forehead against the cold glass of the tank, his arms wrapped around the base.
"The…" His voice cracks, and he pauses before continuing. "The scientists say that, you know, someday they'll be able to… remake bodies."
"In how long? A few decades? A few tens of decades?" I'm bitter, but the computerized voice doesn't get it across. Kenny chuckles.
"Does it matter?" He shifts his head so he can face the camera again. His eyes are glittering like they usually do. "I have forever. We have forever."
I force the whir of the processor drop, slowing the light-quick processes to a more… human… level. I'm just a brain, covered in wires and connected to one of the most powerful computers in existence. But I can still feel emotions.
I wish I could show them. I wish a lot of things. I wish I was still human. I wish the accident never happened. But maybe it was for the better.
"Kenny…" I start, a question in my mind rising up again. Strange, it should've been on my list sooner.
"Yeah…" he answers, slightly groggy. He was falling asleep, I realize. I feel bad waking him, but he's already looking into the camera expectantly.
"When did you stop aging?" A strange question, I guess. The only time I noticed it was when I really thought about the passing of time; I'd always expected Kenny to be young and energetic, no thought otherwise had ever struck me.
"I dunno…" He shrugged, crossing his arms on the desk and laying his head on them. He's starting to doze off again.
"You should really get to bed…" I say, but he just mutters something incomprehensible back. I can imagine how long he'd stayed up, waiting for me to come back after the most recent round of technical check-ups. I forcefully shut down processes that don't need to be running and put myself into sleep mode. While the cameras still record, my last conscious vision is that of Kenny, dozing peacefully on the desk.
We have decades to wait, but Kenny's right. We have forever.
And maybe, one day in the future, I'll be more than just a brain stuck in a fish tank.