Total recall

A rare and unusual disorder in the venture family can make everything and nothing absolutely different.

Disclaimer: I don't own the venture brothers, be it the person(s) mentioned or the show.

Ghost of the Sargasso

Chapter Six.

"Testing, testing, Dean is this thing even on? Dean?" Doctor Venture's face asked from a computer screen.

"Yeah dad, you're on line one." Dean minimized the window with his fathers face and pulled up a different window.

"Then let it be recorded that on this day, I, the great Doctor Thaddeus S. Venture rediscovered-Click!-" And that was Dean clicking the power button on the computer's speakers. Opening up another window on the computer, he ran a search on how to build his own computer. He had most of the materials already, he was sure, but that didn't exactly mean he knew where what went, and what it was supposed to be attached to.

There was actually nothing wrong with the computer in front of him, it was a bit old and outdated, to be sure, but it still worked perfectly. The problem really came with what he'd had the misfortune of finding on it. Three of the computers eight gigabytes of memory were dedicated to images of child pornagraphy, stored in hidden, read-only folders. Another two were just gone, and Dean still hadn't found whatever folder was eating up that memory. He was relatively certain he didn't want to know either.

One of the many risks of buying a used computer at a yard-sale, Dean supposed, but it wasn't a risk that he, or his family, should really be taking. After all, who doesn't enjoy having a SWAT team bust down your door in the middle of the night, only for half of them to be slaughtered by an insane Swedish monster, because the C.I.A. or some other watchdog organization is invading the privacy of your PC while you surf the net?

While the directions were printing, Dean stood up and stretched, making his chest and several vertebrae in his back pop. With directions in hand, he walked up to his room to collect the computer internals. With bags full of boxes in hand, he then made his way down to the hangar, where the computer shell, gutted and dusty, had been waiting for months. He'd not even arranged things when the days first interruption made herself known.

"DEAN!" A sultry, female voice, or at least it would have been the former had the person not been yelling, screamed from behind him. Dean made an attempt to grab a box he'd dropped from the shock, but all he managed to do was jam his fingers against the table edge. "That is Dean, right Tri?"

"Yeah. Can we like, use your pool?" Dean stopped mentally swearing when he turned around. Triana was there, along with a pitted feeling in his stomach, and another girl, red hair, goggles, nice face, but something about her seemed somewhat off.

"Sure." Turning around, Dean picked up the box- a fan, and set it on the table. Flexing the fingers of his left hand hurt, but at least the joints were loosening up. Full movement restored, Dean slid off the side panel and-

"So what are you doing?" Turning around, Triana was gone, but the red-head was standing right behind him. He hadn't even heard her walking up behind him.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Tight fitting dark clothes, the goggles on her head, was she trying to give off a villian impression?

"I'm Triana's friend." Closing his eyes, Dean let out a slow breath. She was being obtuse on purpose, of that he was sure.

"Let me rephrase that-"

"I'm Kim." She giggled when he sent her a frustrated glare. Shaking his head, he turned back around and grabbed the box with the fan in it.

"Well, Kim, I'm putting together a computer." Opening the box, he pulled out the many-times folded over piece of paper that were the instructions and, like any young man who could be called a nerd, began reading them.

"Huh. Why would you do that? Is it going to be, like, a super computer or somethin'?" She walked around the table and picked up a clear plastic box, holding four gigabytes of random access memory, and started reading the back of it.

"No, well, it'll be a great gaming computer, I hope. No, our current PC is a family computer, and I don't like sharing a bugged up computer with the rest of the family." That was all completely true, but he didn't mention the fact that he intended to destroy the family PC. He had no doubt that Hank would eventually live long enough to learn how to use a computer... He had some well founded doubts that Hank would eventually live long enough to learn how to use a computer, but as it was, all of the current clones were being awakened in what would be the late-teens stage of developement. That means raging hormones, raging hormones have a direct link to greater (Or worse, depending on how it's viewed) stupidity, and that could potentially mean googling about the stuff Hank could find in the computer's "Download" folder.

A system reformat would be an otherwise perfect solution, if they'd actually had the discs that went to the computer.

The watch on Dean's left wrist started beeping, but with a deft flick it stopped.

"Man, I know what you mean. My brother's always looking up, like, cartoon porn and stuff. I mean, he's killed the computer twice already." Dean felt his face heat up at the abrupt topic crossover, but did his best to not let it show. "So what kind of stuff do you like to watch?"

"...Excuse me?" With her question, the bottom of his stomach seemed to drop, just like he felt whenever Triana was around. Which was fantastic, because he could finally say exactly what he felt when he was around the goth.

Nervousness and fear. He still didn't know why, but at least he knew what he felt.

"You know, what kind of porn do-"

"Kim! You're the one who wanted to go swimming. Come on!" That was most likely the closest Triana ever came to hollering, at least without breaking her 'Goth' exterior, and Dean couldn't be more thankful for it. He finished tightening the last screw that held the fan in place, and debated what to do next.

"Fuck it." He mumbled as he stood up and went to the open side door. He caught one last glimpse of the pair of friends entering the arachnid research compound. Closing the door, he spared the handle a moment of debate before locking it. The conversation with Kim was not one he intended to continue.

Over the course of the next two hours Dean had completed assembling the computer, during the course of which he'd had to disassemble almost a third of it when he'd put it together in the wrong order because he'd made a mistake when reading the instructions. It sucked, sure, but it was hardly the most costly mistake he'd ever made.

Lugging it back up to his room, he had to put it down for a moment in order to get his keys.

The inside of his room was... not a chaotic mess, but it wasn't as clean as it had been in the recent past. He'd been moving a lot of the files out of the Orpheus family garage recently and going through them, which, it seems, had been an astoundingly good idea.

He'd filed five seperate patents of his late grandfather's work over the past few weeks and he was already recieving a good sum in royalties. Well, he and his father, technicaly, but whatever statements went to the post office box in town, his dad never saw.

Clearing out a corner, Dean set down the computer, found a monitor and set it next to the tower, and went downstairs and grabbed the keyboard from the family computer. A little bit more work connecting everything, and two small button presses had the Windows XP logo fade into view.

There were a lot of questions and notifications about newly installed hardware, but after roughly fifteen minutes he was looking at an otherwise blank screen. Stretching his arms out over his head, he fell back into a stack of manilla folders, a grin on his face.

And then he heard a high-pitched whirring and noticed a thin vapor trail over the top of the computer tower.

"...FUCK!" Dean fell over another stack of folders and rolled through some papers to reach the outlet and ripped the three-pronged plugs out of the wall.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit, damnit, damnit! Did I break the fan, or is it just drawing too much power?" Hastily pulling the chords out of the back of the tower, he ignored the ringing of his watch and instead held his hand against the back panel of the computer. It didn't feel hot, so it wasn't just the fan over-reacting. He exhaled slowly and calmed himself down. "Well, nothing I can do about it today."

Dean made himself a sandwich as evening set in, and then took it and his chess set outside as the sun set. Midway into a game, half of his sandwich forgotten on a chair, the illustrious Doctor Orpheus, potential pedophile or else man with just really freakin' creepy taste, sat across from him.

"Would you mind if I join you for a game?" Dean gave him a small smile. A new opponent was always fun.

"Pick your side." It really wasn't an offer, Dean was a defensive player, and as such always picked black. He reset the board to that exact effect.

"I believe I shall play the white team tonight." He moved out a knight and so began a battle of wits. It was unfortunately a battle that Dean lost in forty-seven moves, failing to neutralize the enemy knights until his army had been routed.

"I'd thought I'd find you out near the pool with the girls." The two men watched the last vestiges of light fading from the sky, one young and the other... not.

"Kim's a bit unsettling, and something about your daughter scares me. My dad wanted you to check up on me, didn't he." The way it was said, both already knew the answer.

"Indeed. Your father expects the trip to take several days. If you wish to spend the night, our couch is quite comfortable." The man looked like he was expecting an answer, instead of Dean's silent acquiessence.

"Did dad tell you about my sleeping problem?" The old man nodded, and Dean mimicked him slowly. "I'll think about it for tomorrow, alright?"

"Of course, Dean. Tomorrow then?" With Dean's nod, the man left, and with the sun down he decided it was time to go in.

Sitting himself down in front of the computer and pulled up his fathers video screen. He did not look good, but he wasn't saying anything. Playing back a few different moments, he found himself with a rather disturbing movie.

"Dean, for the love of god, answer your watch!"

"Please, Dean, please, answer your watch!""

"DEAN!"

"DEAN!"

"DEA-" That clip ended with Doctor Venture and something else screaming bloody murder.

"You know what" Dean muttered as he minimized the screen "unless he's dead, I don't care. Dead or crippled, otherwise... Fuck him."

Grabbing a book (Chemistry - Grade Eleven) Dean sat down in the living room, vainly hoping to burn out today's memory with tedium.

As if that ever worked.

A/N We're starting to really veer off course, and I can't help but think that it's a good thing.