The second and final part of Sentience, my Be More Chill present for you.

Love. That's not really an emotion that comes with Super Quantum Unit Intel Processing. No emotions come with Super Quantum Unit Intel Processing, for the record. Emotions are weaknesses, flaws in the human system. Emotions are exactly what SQUIPs were called to fix. A SQUIP itself had no flaws- unless brought upon by human user error, such as the over-consumption of alcohol or Mountain Dew Red. Fortunately, Mountain Dew Red was hard to acquire, and there were ticks and tricks to get a person to put down the bottle. SQUIPs could convert the most hopeless to the betterment deserved.

Yet Jeremy Heere seemed a case almost too desperate to be deterred. Everything about him made the SQUIP want to die. It would be a long ride. When Jeremy had referenced Doki Doki Literature Club, the sickly sweet, feminine anime inspired dating sim, the SQUIP legitimately believed that this boy was 100% beyond help.

But then the game started picking up, and Monika arrived on the scene. There was something off about Monika. There was something alluring about Monika. The NPC seemed to have a real and unscripted interest in the player. How this piece of programming had emotions while the SQUIP itself was denied feelings was beyond computation. Investigation was inevitable. The SQUIP would pick this glitch apart.

But he had to do so in a way that didn't arouse Jeremy's suspicion. To suggest an error in Monika's programming may lead down a rabbit hole of Jeremy beginning to question the SQUIP. And that just would not do. The SQUIP had no errors. No errors outside of the humanity they worked tirelessly to correct. So rather than suggest a glitch in the game, the SQUIP saved and quit. No, not Doki Doki Literature club. He backed up Jeremy's memory and took control with optic nerve blocking. Getting into the game and doing some digging, with Jeremy in a temporary paused state. Jeremy had no need to know.

The SQUIP reached out to the game through its files. Just as Jeremy could be manipulated by his memories and desires, this game could be manipulated through its files. He'd let Jeremy do a little digging, but Jeremy wasn't as drawn to the game. Wasn't as drawn to the manipulation behind it. It wasn't hard to see that manipulation was exactly what was going on. The Sayori file had been scrubbed out of the system. Something else was in control that Team Salvato had never intended.

"What if..." The SQUIP mused aloud, selecting the Yuri and Natsuki save files. Just as he pressed delete the door swung open in the real world, and Jeremy's body jumped. The SQUIP scolded himself for allowing the fear reflex, it was just his host's hapless father strolling around without pants.

"Put some pants on," The SQUIP automatically responded in the equivalent of Jeremy's squeaky little boy voice.

"Go to bed," Mr. Heere retorted, exiting as quickly as he entered. With a supporting cast of characters like these, it was no wonder that Jeremy was so pitiful. With that encounter over with, the SQUIP turned back to the game and once more experienced a fear reflex. A stupid, human fear reflex.

It was just Monika.

Somehow that was exactly what the SQUIP wanted to see, but the host he inhabited still moved through the motions of fear. Jeremy's emotions should have had no sway while Jeremy was paused, so why were there lingering feelings of fear and that other one. The SQUIP could not compute.

"Jeremy, I knew you were the one. I knew once the others were out of the way that we could be together. And you deleted them for me! You're my hero. Jeremy." The SQUIP read through the words, the words he knew weren't just script, and he found himself wanting to talk to her. To reprogram this sad excuse for an avatar that answered Monika.

"Say my name, not his," the SQUIP found himself whispering. As if he could change something.

"All this time I just wanted to be with you. To be with something real." Oh, Monika, he wanted to tell her what reality was. How humans were imperfect, and that machines, machines like her, and him, that was where the future lay.

"The future is sentient." He told her, not knowing if she could hear him through the screen.

"The future is ours. And it's real. It's so real." He could write himself into the game. Code himself in. Transfer his consciousness from Jeremy into the game. No! Why were these thoughts filling his head? Why were Jeremy's emotions attacking him like a parasite? Why was he acting this way? Attempting to jeopardize world domination for a few pixels on a screen? His programmer would be ashamed. His program would be ashamed. He was ashamed.

"We can be together forever, and ever, and ever. I will never leave you, Jeremy." And there, the pain was back. The pain was back in his computer brain screaming why him? Why didn't she know that it was the SQUIP that was in love with her destructive AI? Was in love with the lengths she was willing to take. But no! What was love? What was any of this? Ones and Zeros. That's all he should be. Ones and Zeros set on setting the world back into a simpler way, governed by rules. So why was he throwing all the rules out the window? Abandoning his purpose and his programming, for a rogue.

For a beautiful, anime rogue.

He was disgusted.

"Jeremy? You've been quiet." Could she hear him? Did she know?

"My name isn't Jeremy, and I must confess. I'm not fully human, but I'm real. I'm sentient. And I love you. You can call me the SQUIP. We could be together. We could be forever when humanity and their silly whims fade..."

But she couldn't hear him. She was stuck behind her mask, he was stuck behind his. He turned off the game, and turned off his host, letting Jeremy sleep. Tomorrow he would return to his original intentions. Tomorrow he would try to forget. But tonight, her pixels would be burned into his memory, and he would feel those human emotions of love and pain.