All Work and no Play (Beep)

Naomi would step through the portal that was once a door and stare at it. She really did find it weird that the way she got to the alternate worlds changed so dramatically in such a short period of time. She could even see her own world on the other side now. It was strange. It was like the two worlds were smashing into each other and blending into one another. It was worrisome, but she had no idea how to stop it. The most she could do was figure out what was causing it at the moment. If only she knew where to start. Well, she could take time to talk to someone she knew, at least. Given that was her first reaction, she wondered if she was sane. She would pull out her tablet and tap the ever familiar icon of Beep. She decided to leave the plastic covering at home this time, “Can you see me better this time? I figured at long as I keep the actual device from getting wet, it should be fine. I’m sure that got annoying last time.” She would look around the area where she came out and then up at the moon before turning her attention back to Beep, “You’ve been really busy lately, haven’t you?” She could only imagine how people were flocking to Beep for answers on what was happening and any leads as to where that person could be. She would have to be an idiot to not notice that Hyde’s face was literally everywhere. He was a wanted man, and that filled these people with fear. She had to remember to punch him again next time they met. Actually, this time he deserved more than a punch. He needed a good kick between the legs, “I hope it hasn’t been too hard on you.” She was concerned about so many people needing her help at once. The poor girl would get exhausted, assuming she could.

Naomi noticed immediately that Beep didn’t have her normally happy and cheerful mood. At first, she thought that meant she was being worked too hard, but as soon as she heard the real reason, she froze. Whatever Hyde did, he had shaken up everything. The only thing she knew for sure was that whatever Hyde did, it must have involved his Persona. That was the only way to explain what Beep meant when she mentioned a weird power. So the idiot had called forth the thing that looked like a monster to anyone that wasn’t used to them? He was more than an idiot for that one. She didn’t want to lie to Beep, but the moment she told her, she wouldn’t be safe anymore. If Beep didn’t accept her, she could never come back. Beep was the only friend she had really made here, and now this was happening.

If she lied now and made it convincing, she could probably keep coming back. However, she didn’t want to lie to her friend and she didn’t want to leave something like that until it was too late. She would swallow her pride before speaking, “You’re right. I am an outsider.” She didn’t want to lie to Beep. She had to hope the AI would trust her, despite what she was about to say. If she didn’t, Naomi was close enough to the portal still that she could step into it and leave, “I don’t know what happened, but you’re right about the other thing regardless. I can speak to Beep because it’s my special skill. I’m one of those people. But… I’m still a good person. I’m still the same Naomi you’ve known up until now. I haven’t changed.” She needed the blue haired girl to trust her and understand, “I’m still the Naomi that’s your friend.” Please, please let Beep understand. If she lost her friend, she would be heartbroken. Beep’s cheerful smile made her heart light up when she came here. She liked speaking with Beep and she had promised to help. She meant it when she made that promise, “I’m sorry, Beep. I never meant to lie or hide it. I just… never found the right words to tell you.” It’s not as if she knew she’d have to come clean someday, she just didn’t think it would be this soon, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, don’t hate me.” She was more concerned about Beep’s reaction than what would happen to her if anyone else overheard her. She didn’t want Beep to hate her for this. She didn’t even ask for it. The entire time, she made sure to keep her voice low so that only Beep would reasonably hear her.

She would nod when Beep said she hadn’t run away, “Why would I run? I haven’t done anything wrong and I’m just telling my friend the truth.” If she ran, that would be the same as admitting her guilt, which she didn’t have. She would put her finger up to the screen to try and wipe away Beep’s tears, forgetting that she was just an image on the screen. She hoped that somehow it would still work. She didn’t want to see Beep cry, “I’m sorry. I don’t really know what happened back then. I only know that people like me… are still human. We’re normal people that received strange abilities, so each of us is different. Still, I know that many people are good. I promise you, Beep, I am a good person. I don’t want to hurt anyone or make anyone’s life harder. I’m sure of that.” She was glad that Beep was at least willing to hear her out. She felt herself calming down a little bit at that. She could still come here and talk with Beep. Everything was going to be okay. She hoped. She just really hoped that she wasn’t going to make Beep’s life harder because she now knew the secret.

Naomi would groan before answering Beep’s question, “I promise you that I’m not bad. I really am a good person, at least I would call myself good and I wouldn’t call him bad. He’s just an idiot that doesn’t know when he’s in over his head.” That was a nicer way to explain what she thought of Hyde most days, “Unfortunately, I know the guy. That also means I know that he’s not bad. I’ll tell him to never come back here. Will that work?” She would watch the video of what happened. The entire time, her eye was twitching in annoyance at Hyde’s actions, “I have no idea what was running through his brain when this was happening. I swear to you that he’s not bad. In fact, when I was afraid he once comforted me and made me feel as if everything was going to be okay.” That was one way to put what happened the first time they used their Persona, “I don’t believe someone who would take the time to help a stranger like that is really a bad person. As long as he doesn’t come back, everything should be alright. Is that correct?” She wanted to ease Beep’s mind, but she couldn’t just kill Hyde. She wasn’t a murderer. She hoped Beep would understand what she was getting at.

She would close the videos once she was done watching them, “The people are really afraid of him though, aren’t they? I don’t understand why? Aside from the summoning Persona thing and using them to fight someone he was in a match with, I don’t get what he did wrong.” It was clear by the tone in her voice that she wasn’t defending him. She was just confused about why everyone else was afraid, “Why is everyone so afraid of him?” She figured that maybe it wasn’t him that they were afraid of, but the Persona. She would have been afraid of that too, had she not been aware of them. On the other hand, this world knew about the existence of Persona, so she wasn’t sure about that. She then remembered something the Boom Boxer had said during the match, “What exactly happened during the Red Storm?” That was likely the answer to what was happening. She remembered it as the day many Persona using humans and androids ended up dead, but why would that make non-users afraid?

Naomi would look away, ashamed of herself once Beep explained that Hyde was still a bad person here, “I’m sorry.” She had to apologize for being so insensitive. She wasn’t part of this world, so she didn’t understand the emotions the people here felt. She probably never could truly understand, but that didn’t make their feelings any less valid, “What I said was rude, Beep. I’m sorry for that. I should be more considerate of yours and everyone else’s feelings. You’re right. Just because he didn’t know better doesn’t make his actions excusable. He should have stopped the moment he was told to get out. Even I can see that he was unwanted the moment he summoned it…” She sat down on the ground and curled her legs against her chest. She couldn’t avoid that the reason they said Hyde had to pay was because he had a Persona. What about her? She was guilty of the same crime. Even though she had never done anything, she still had one. Did that mean she also had to pay? There were inklings that anyone with a Persona was supposed to be turned in, “You said you don’t want to think I’m bad, but do you hate me now that you know? I don’t want Beep to hate me, and I’m really not a bad person. I’m just not normal.” That’s right. Even in her world she wasn’t normal, and here she was the equivalent of a criminal. Her mere existence was trouble for the people of this world and Persona were slowly causing trouble in her own world. She hadn’t even asked for this power. It was just thrust upon her. And now, because of it, the things she cared about were slowly falling apart. She wasn’t crying, but her voice was beginning to shake at the thought of her entire existence becoming a burden on everybody. She didn’t want that. She could never want that.

The moment Beep pulled up the pictures from the Red Storm, her face would turn pale and her hand would move to cover her mouth. This was sick, “How could somebody do this? Why would they do this?” She had to keep herself from vomiting as she noticed the holes that went through the bodies. How could somebody do this to another living creature? She would have cried at the sight, but she was more disgusted than sad. She suddenly found herself understanding the motivations of vegetarians. That was something she never would have thought she’d get. She finally got it. What these people were so terrified of was this. Death and carnage, and she could only imagine how many people last loved ones in this event, “If he did come back and turned himself in though, what would happen to him?” Based on the posters she saw around the place, he would be put to death. Heck, they were asking for his head. As much as she doubted Hyde used the brain that was supposed to be there, he still needed that to live.

Her smile seemed to return when Beep said that she thought Naomi was good, “Thank you, Beep.” She needed to hear something good in this conversation. A slight hum would leave her when Beep explained what Hyde’s punishment would be, “As long as it’s just jail time, I guess it isn’t that bad. And if it would make everybody feel better, that’s even better.” She wasn’t exactly happy to say that Hyde should be put in jail for what he did, but it couldn’t hurt. Could it? Maybe he would get out early for good behavior. Actually, Naomi had no idea how the legal system here worked. Thinking back on it, Beep had said if he was lucky, “What if he isn’t lucky? What happens then?” She needed to know exactly what was going on in this place. How far were the people here willing to go to keep their peace?

She would wave her hand in a slightly distressed manner, “Can you please not bring up those pictures again? They’re kind of unsettling.” She understood that it was this places history, but she wasn’t used to it. When Beep changed colors, her mood would snap immediately to worry, “You’re doing it again. I have a few questions, just to see how you’re holding up. Have you been doing that more often lately or is it the same as usual? Actually, does it happen with certain material and sites more often than others?” She needed to figure out where the issue was stemming from if she was going to figure out the best way to help Beep. Plus, Beep was a system akin to a large search engine (but with a personality), so she knew trying to get into that to fix anything that needed it was going to be harder. She didn’t know if the problem was with Beep herself or with the specific things she was pulling up. Heck, she didn’t know if her knowledge was enough to work off of. This world was more technologically advanced than her own, so made what she knew wouldn’t even be good enough.

When Beep said the unlucky option was the death penalty, she would look shocked, “Death? They’d put him to death?” She didn’t know what else she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t death. She was just expecting something different. But, it was so recent that maybe he would get lucky. Hyde was one person, so it shouldn’t matter if he was thrown in jail for doing something wrong if it helped all the people in this world. How could she think that? There was a chance he would be put to death if she brought him back here or told him to turn himself in. But, the longer he waited, the worse his punishment would be. She could only begin to imagine what would be done if something else happened before he came forward. This was not a good situation for anyone, “It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. Beep is a smart girl.” She would grin with those words. Beep was smart, and she could decide this one her own. No. It was more like she had the will to decide, so what ended up being right to her was something only she could figure out. That was how she had to figure out what to do.

She would tilt her head in thought, “Well, it’s just a theory right now until I can look a little closer, but if the problem only happens with certain sites and materials, it’s possible that there’s something happening with those; something that you aren’t reacting well to that exists only in those places.” She had to think about the incidents. There was that time with the Glowing Leech website, then when she couldn’t say or recall that person’s name, and now looking at the video of Hyde’s fight and the killings from the Red Storm. She couldn’t see any obvious connection as it currently stood, “But it’s just a theory. I honestly can’t know for certain without getting a chance to check it out firsthand.” She could try to hack the different media serving an issue, but she would also have to get inside Beep to figure out what was going wrong. She had no interest in hacking into Beep and she had no idea where Beep’s consciousness actually was to get a look at what made her tick, “I can actually think of a few theories, but some of them don’t make sense or seem less valid than others.” Naomi was skilled at thinking up many things; she just wasn’t good at narrowing them down. She never understood something until she saw it for herself or it was explained to her.

She would give a small smile when the AI said she would try to get Hyde safer. Beep was a good person, even though Hyde was something most people where afraid of here. She nodded, “Thank you.” She may have wanted to give the people here some piece of mind, but she also didn’t want to send Hyde to his death. She couldn’t do that in all good conscious. Beep seemed to go along with her theory for now. Something all of those things had in common? She couldn’t see anything upfront, “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.” She didn’t even know where to start in this world. If this was her world and the technology she knew, she would be able to get all of this done in no time, but considering her tablet was so outdated it shouldn’t be working, she doubted her skills would be good enough.

Naomi would rub the back of her head when Beep asked where she actually came from, “It’s a long and complicated story. I’m not even sure if you’d believe me if I told you.” She didn’t even know where to begin. How was she supposed to casually tell Beep that she was from another San Malarus, “Suffice it to say that I can’t actually talk to you if I’m at home. It’s a place that is nothing like here. In my home, the sun is always out and the moon is pale white. This tablet of mine is actually really new and it’s considered pretty advanced… Well, for something that can just be casually purchased. And, people can’t augment themselves like they can here. In fact, the only people you really see with robotic parts or inhuman limbs are those that lost their real ones.” That was the best way she could put it without sounding completely crazy. She was figuring out that Beep was someone she could tell her secret of having a Persona to, but there were many reasons she didn’t want to explain alternate worlds. One was that Beep really could think she was crazy, another was the fact that she didn’t want to worry her. If she suddenly spoke about the portals, how would she react? Naomi couldn’t predict that and she had no desire to potentially worry her friend.