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Unplugged

Summary:

"So what if she wasn’t the infallible and serious girl wonder society wanted her to be. On @channel, you were just a name and some text. For Kurisu, that anonymity was a blessing."
 
Kurisu hadn't woken up that day with the intention of meeting the love of her life. Had she known the circumstances in which they would meet, perhaps she would have ditched @channel altogether.

Chapter 1: i. anonymity

Summary:

Kurisu starts an argument. Okabe finishes it.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Kurisu couldn’t believe what she was about to do.

It’s stupid, her brain chirped, and she was bound to agree. Sixteen-year-old geniuses don’t argue with trolls online.

She ought to keep scrolling. That was what she was here for, wasn’t it? @channel was just a harmless distraction from the bleak, exhausting, eternal slump that was university life. Sure, it was riddled with memelords – their words, not hers – and she was lucky if she ever saw a genuinely interesting post get replies that went beyond “that’s cool, now tits plz?” Occasionally she would chip in with a bloated comment on the science channel rebutting someone’s inane theory on the potential for telepathy, but for the most part, she was a lurker right down to the very marrow. And she intended to keep it that way.

But today wasn’t an average day. Her father’s sour mood has permeated the air and her mother’s flowers were starting to wilt, making quite the sad sight from the urn of which they guarded. She was tired, unfathomably so, but her head wouldn’t quit with all the noise and anxiety and voices from her most recent lecture. The pressure of tomorrow’s essay was building to a fever pitch. Kurisu needed release, fast, and if it means she had to hurt some twenty-one-year-old frat boy’s feelings online in order to get it – then, well, so be it.

The post that had garnered her ire was, at first glance, a blinding wall of text riddled with big words and even bigger misconceptions. She read it once, then twice, then vowed one last time because she was Kurisu Makise, damn it, a university student at sixteen and already well on her way to being the youngest ever to graduate with a neuroscience degree, and like hell she was going to let herself get hung up on a post fighting to prove time-travel of all things.

 

 KuriGohan: Are you stupid?

 

Her eyes sought out the username responsible for this flaccid argument. Madscientist1? Really? They couldn’t net the madscientist handle, so they had to tack on a number like some thirteen-year-old newbie to the internet? Not that madscientist would have been any better. She supposed the topic did make more sense when pinned to a user like so.

Am I being too mean? she thought as she stared at her work-in-progress rebuttal. But then she thought – it’s the internet. They’re going to call me a bitch and move on with their life. Why should I care?

So, she started typing.

Her fingers were a blur across the keyboard. Madscientist1’s original post consistently brought up the multiverse theory. Their main point was that skipping through time would be possible if we thought of time not as a straight line and more like a sandwich of infinite layers. (Again – their words. Not hers.) They waffled on about how reality had the potential to have many different existing facets, all of which could take place at the exact same time, here and now, piled on top of each other like some great cosmic burger of possibilities. It wasn’t important, but she felt the need to note that they also compared this theory to the branching routes of a dating sim visual novel. Typical.

Kurisu had three reasons why this hypothesis rubbed the wrong way:

  1. It was a seriously worded scientific essay with sandwich, burger & eroge game comparisons littered throughout.
  2. Madscientist1 seemed obsessed with the phrase furthermore. Furthermore this, furthermore that, furthermore “reality is just god’s personal porn game of which there is no escape” and this is a disgrace to my @channel feed Mr. Mad Scientist One.
  3. Time-travel is not possible. End of discussion.

By the time the click-clacking of her keyboard had faded into nothingness, Kurisu was staring back at her own wall of text, this one perfectly punctuated and purged of any flaws. A small part of herself was proud in the admittedly empty achievement. An even larger part was ashamed. And rightfully so. She had just spent a full hour rebutting what was most likely a gag post on a site famous for hosting the dregs of society. Anonymity could be both a blessing and a curse; @channel was out to prove that it was most definitely a curse.

And yet that was what had lured Kurisu in. Sometimes she wanted nothing more than to go back to when things were simple. When there was no fame attached to her name; when her father didn’t look at her like he would at a cockroach begging to be crushed; when her mother was alive and well.

Kurisu couldn’t revisit the past. That much was certain. And the present looked up to her with so much expectation and praise that even thinking about it summoned a swirling pit in her stomach. But there was something she could do and that was hiding behind her nerdy username to pretend, if only for a short while, that she was just a normal girl who liked watching trolls bait other trolls and laughing at memes on occasion. So what if she wasn’t the infallible and serious girl wonder society wanted her to be. On @channel, you were just a name and some text. For Kurisu, that anonymity was a blessing.

In the dark, stale air of her room, Kurisu jolted. Her mouse hovered over the send button. The only light was the light from her computer screen, a blaring and washed out yellow that reflected @channel’s plain 2004-era chat-board design. She sighed, the fight all but leaving her system. If nothing else, her rant at Madscientist1 had aired her many grievances over the topic of time-travel. There was no point in focusing on pseudoscience that actively worked against the laws of physics. She pressed send and shoved back in her chair, already thinking about tomorrow’s looming essay and how she really should’ve spent that last hour working on it. She was famous among her lecturers for barely scraping by deadlines. Kurisu blamed performance anxiety.

She was thinking of flicking Maho a quick message when a small bing on the @channel tab trilled to life. Kurisu blinked. It was either the latest post on her favourite science meme board or a message that had her username tagged. She bet on the latter.

Sure enough, Madscientist1’s name flashed in all its red comic sans glory. Kurisu couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. To reply that fast, he was either firing off a list of expletives or telling her to chill the fuck out and indulge some fantasy in her life. The last guy she’d fought with had said just that. “Do you have to be such a buzzkill? I’m not saying it’s a definite fact. Just that it’s possible. Live a little, why don’t you. Science never would have gotten this far without a bit of imagination.”

Kurisu had been willing to admit that they had a point. Then she’d read their username: queefbelcher69. And any argument they could have possibly concocted died alongside their dignity.

Opening up the notification, Kurisu steeled her heart and scrolled down. What she saw betrayed what she’d expected.

 

Madscientist1: Have I struck a nerve?

 

“What?” Too late. Kurisu bit down on her lip, hard. Stupid. Her father had an early morning lecture at the university. It was already 2am, a realization that turned her blood cold. As the deafening silence resumed, thick and softly punctured by the distant snores of Shouichi, Kurisu felt her heart resume and renewed heat pool through her veins. Good. So he hadn’t heard. She resolved to be extra quiet and scooted closer on her chair.

The logical part of her brain begged that she either get some sleep or be a productive, timely university student for once in her life – but for as logical as Kurisu could be, that fact did not stand true when it came to picking her arguments. As soon as her pride was affronted, she had to fight back, even if it was in something as silly or inconsequential as an online debate over time-travel.

 

KuriGohan: You haven’t struck anything. I’m simply debasing your idiotic argument. Which, by the way, you have yet to answer my initial question: are you stupid?

 

Madscientist1: I’m no fool. I’ve merely pointed out a pivotal flaw in how we view time.

 

KuriGohan: And your solution to that was to compare time to cheeseburgers and dating sims?

 

Madscientist1: You see a childish metaphor. I see a simplified comparison for all the sheeple out there.

 

KuriGohan: oh my god

 

Madscientist1: Think about it. How many scientific essays do you read that alienate the common crowd? Science has gathered a reputation for being elitist at best and discriminatory at worst. I’m trying to bring grand ideas and loaded concepts down to a more understandable level. Comparing time to a burger might seem pathetic to you, but to me, I see it as an easy way to break down a complicated subject for someone uninitiated in the field.

 

KuriGohan: Okay. But consider this: time-travel isn’t a science.

 

Madscientist1: It is too.

 

KuriGohan: It most certainly is not.

 

Madscientist1: The mechanics of time-travel are rooted in science just as everything else in our reality is.

 

KuriGohan: See, that’s the thing. You talk like we’ve already got some time-travel taxi on the go. We aren’t jumping into big blue police boxes and gallivanting across the universe. It’s a tantalizing idea, sure, but it’s simply beyond the reaches of scientific plausibility. Your simplified “explanations” do nothing to help the scientific community when all you’re fighting for is a science fiction concept disproved years ago.

 

Madscientist1: Ha. They warned me there would be naysayers.

 

KuriGohan: Excuse me? Naysayers?

 

Madscientist1: Disbelievers. Slanderers. Haters. People like you with so closed a mind that you can barely muster the faith to reach out and grasp what is so obviously right in front of you.

 

KuriGohan: I know what naysayers means. You’re just starting to sound like a cultist and frankly, I don’t have time for that. I have an essay due in less than 24 hours. Why am I even talking to you?

 

Kurisu rubbed at her face. The artificial computer light was starting to burn her eyes. She guessed that was inevitable after seven hours of non-stop scrolling through the interwebs. Okay, so maybe she did have a slight problem. Regardless, she was about at her limit with Madscientist1’s pointless ideology. He prattled on like some wannabe cult leader bent on having her ‘see the light.’ She was about to log off and roll into bed (where she’d probably wind up going through the @channel app because yay, insomnia) when one last notif coaxed both a sigh and a reluctant click.

 

Madscientist1: You like Doctor Who?

 

For the second time that night, Madscientist1 surprised her.

@channel was a Japanese anonymous messaging board, similar to its American equivalent 4chan or – to a lesser extent – Reddit. If she wanted to entrench herself in English memes and lopsided scientific discussion, she’d just use those sites. Which she did, admittedly. But as a Japanese woman living the American life at what was one of the whitest universities in the country, by the end of the day she’d had her fill of English culture. In a weird way, @channel was an important connection to home. It kept her Japanese fresh, her memes even fresher (oh god help her she was becoming one of them, the memelords) and it reminded her that America wasn’t forever. This (the dark bedroom, her brooding father, the sad urn and its dead flowers on the high-reaching bookshelf) wasn’t permanent.

All this to say that in her sleep-deprived state, Kurisu hadn’t been expecting Doctor Who to be brought up because what?

It wasn’t as if the show didn’t have a dedicated following in Japan. It did. In fact, it was more popular over there now than ever. But it was still only a niche interest, rarely – if ever – brought up in @channel unless as a recommendation to someone seeking foreign science fiction TV shows or movies.

 

KuriGohan: You know Doctor Who?

 

Madscientist1: Obviously.

 

KuriGohan: Oh. Okay... Well. Yeah, I’ve seen a few episodes.

 

That was an understatement.

 

KuriGohan: Who’s your favourite Doctor?

 

Madscientist1: Is it a cop-out to say … all of them?

 

For some reason, in what could only be attributed to her coffee-infused, sleep-deprived state, Kurisu laughed.

 

KuriGohan: It’s about the most generic question you get asked when you bring up Doctor Who, so if you really were a fan, you’d have picked a favourite.

 

Madscientist1: Ah, a gatekeeper. No casuals allowed, is that it? I’d have hoped for better from you, KuriGohan.

 

KuriGohan: says the guy who compares time to cheeseburgers and eroges!!

 

Madscientist1: You’re really hung up on that, aren’t you?

 

KuriGohan: It’s a disgrace to everything I stand for, so yes. I am.

 

KuriGohan: Wait a minute. I just remembered – I was leaving!

 

Madscientist1: And yet you still refuse to log off. Interesting.

 

Madscientist1: One might begin to think you’re enjoying this conversation.

 

KuriGohan: Ew. No.

 

KuriGohan: I’m just tired. And bored. And procrastinating on this dumb 2000-word essay that’s due tomorrow, so I gotta procrastinate even more until the eventual panic of my approaching deadline boots my ass into survival mode. You’re a good distraction until that happens.

 

queefbelcher69: can you guys take this to dms? you keep bumping this post up on my feed and it’s getting super annoying.

 

Ah. Queefbelcher69. Her mortal enemy.

 

Madscientist1: Shut it, queefbelcher.

 

Finally Madscientist1 said something she could get behind.

 

KuriGohan: Just block the post if it’s that much of a pain, Queef.

 

queefbelcher69: i’m just saying. have some consideration for your fellow @channelers.

 

And just like that, Queef had opened the flood-gates. Suddenly Madscientist1's thread surged with replies. 

 

Lisa4458: hi honeys! lookin for a good time? dm me! nudes and feet pics available for a very special price …

 

Atrophy_Rising: Cool theory dude.

 

cognitive.dissonance: This doesn't belong on @science. Someone tag a mod? We're a channel specifically for the latest in scientific discoveries and fostering genuine discussion, NOT for proposing half-baked meme theories about pseudosciences.

 

Sochi: Mod here. Sorry for the porn-bot, @channel’s had a recent surge of those. Gonna close this thread due to conversation getting out of hand. If you have any disputes, feel free to message either me or another mod of the @channel science board as listed in the sidebar. Have a good day.

 

And just like that, it was over.

Kurisu deflated in her chair, mind racing at a million miles per minute. What had just happened? She’d argued with a stranger online, not a wholly uncommon occurrence, but that argument had turned into an oddly … She didn’t want to say pleasant conversation, even though she had laughed at one point; the man - and she was certain he was a man now, her women’s intuition declared it so – had been so out of this world, even for a run-of-the-mill troll, that she couldn’t help but allow herself to be strung along. Just another historical moment to add to the @channel history books. Embarrassment turned her cheeks into smouldering cups of hot coal.

Before she could even take a deep breath to compose herself, another notification had sprung to life on her screen.

Don’t do it, her logic said. Think of sleep. Think of the essay.

She did not.

It was a direct message from Madscientist1. Predictable. 

 

Madscientist1: So the thread might be dead, but our argument is far from over.

 

KuriGohan: Who gave you permission to private message me? Get out. Shoo.

 

Madscientist1: the queef guy had a good point. What better place to have a battle of wits than here, 1v1, mano a mano?

 

KuriGohan: First of all, the queef guy’s “good points” are immediately invalidated by the fact that he is known as the queef guy.

 

KuriGohan: Secondly, I’m not having a … battle of wits with you. I made my stance quite clear on your theory. There’s nothing left to prove. I’ve won.

 

Madscientist1: And what if I said I could disprove you? What then?

 

KuriGohan: If you can prove me wrong then go right ahead! You know, everyone always says I’m so close-minded. I’m not. If you really have the secret to time-travel right here and now, prove it to me. If I see it, I’ll believe it. Go on. I’m waiting.

 

Madscientist1: You know it’s not that simple.

 

KuriGohan: Of course it’s not.

 

KuriGohan: Anyway. I’m tired. I need to sleep.

 

KuriGohan: Catch you later, I guess.

 

Madscientist1: Catch me later?

 

KuriGohan: Oh. It’s American slang. It means see you soon … or something.

 

KuriGohan: I’m too tired for this. It's hard to be bilingual at 2 o'clock in the morning. 

 

Madscientist1: Ah. You’re American. That explains a lot.

 

KuriGohan: Shut up. I’m not American, I’m Japanese.

 

KuriGohan: I just grew up in America. And I attend an American university. And my mum was half American - oh shit. I really am an American, huh?

 

Madscientist1: It would appear so, weird assistant of mine.

 

KuriGohan: Hey. If anyone here is weird, it’s you. And I am NOT your assistant.

 

Madscientist1: Whatever you say, assistant.

 

Kurisu’s next reply was the knife emoji.

 

KuriGohan: Okay, for real now, I gotta go. I’ll see you later. Maybe.

 

KuriGohan: If you send any dick pics, I will find you, and I will kill you.

 

KuriGohan: Nice meeting you, I suppose. I don’t think ‘nice’ is the right word but it will have to do.  

 

Kurisu didn’t wait to see what his reply was. If she had learned anything from tonight's foray into the deep dark pits of @channel, it was that she was way too easily sucked into people's conversational orbits. She slammed all tabs shut and pushed back on her chair so that it spun across to her bed, from which she ungracefully flopped and rolled onto her back. She’d been too tired to shut her computer off, so the fuzzy light cast a blue sheen across her walls and illuminated various posters of brain anatomy and neurotransmitters.

She wouldn’t think of Madscientist1 again until her next session of @channel. As soon as she’d logged out, KuriGohan had died, and Kurisu Makise – American girl genius, upcoming neuroscientist, the shining light of Viktor Chrondria University – had descended to take her place. There isn't anything wrong with that, she thought as the foggy weight of sleep sent clouds to cover her consciousness; after all, @channel wasn’t real life. It was a break, a game, a distraction, nothing more and nothing less.

(Little did she know that the mysterious Madscientist1 would eventually know her by her real name – and that she’d come to know him as her boyfriend.)

Notes:

It hit me that next year, I'm going to university to major in creative writing and Japanese.

That's all well and good, but ohmygodihaventwrittenanythinginforeverimsooutofpracticesendhelpplease.

And thus, Unplugged was born.

In all seriousness, thank you so much for reading the first chapter. This is my first time writing in quite a long while, so I do apologize for my rustiness. I've been intending to write a Steins;Gate fanfiction since when I first became obsessed with the series back in 2012, so a mere seven years later and I'm finally getting around to it. I swear, time moves at a turtle's pace for me.

I hope you enjoyed the start of what I intend to be a fairly long-running fic centred around the awkward online interactions of one mad scientist and his furiously stubborn assistant. Where will they go from here? If you're keen to find out, consider throwing me a kudos and a bookmark. Comments also never fail to put a smile on my face. So don't be shy, come say hi!

Either way, I'll see you in the next chapter!