I feel like people FAIL to realize JUST how much potential respawn malfunctions have.
It's somewhat explored in Emesis Blue
BUT.
Imagine it malfunctions with somebody being respawned, and instead of just bodily mutations, it also comes with cloning within the same body.
INTERNAL CLONING.
Like - sure. Looks like a somewhat normal Scout. Couple of extra fingers, maybe. But really? That's TWO Scouts in the same body.
And they can both talk at the same time and certain parts of limbs belong to a certain Scout (i.e. Scout 1 can only move the pinky on the left hand, but he gets the whole right leg)
OR.
LIMB DEFORMATION (comedy)
Oh no! The respawn malfunctioned! ... That's why everybody had bigass yaoi hands (don't lie and say they look normal sized to you. You know DAMN WELL TF2 characters have huge hands).
And - oh - would you look at that? Spy doesn't hold the prize for the most concave ass ever anymore. The respawn malfunctioning gave him a dumpy.
MERGING
I think this is probably a lot more basic but. Yeah. Two people died at once. And the machine tried to reform them both at the same time, and now they're a freak that's merged together.
Or maybe they have a cool form like this is a Steven Universe crossover
I HAVE SOOOO MANY MORE IDEAS REGARDING THIS BUT I AM SO VERY SLEEPY AND DO NOT HAVE THE WILL TO WRITE MORE SO. YEAH MAKE IT UP YOURSELVES!!! YOU GOT THIS!!
Characters: Engineer, Sniper, Medic, Miss Pauling, Original Characters, Scout
Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence | Time Travel | Angst | I Wrote This Instead Of Sleeping | No Beta We Die Like The Administrator | More tags may be added
A/N: Feel free to leave comments, feedback, thoughts, ideas - always love to see if people are getting theories about things. This is a rewrite of a fic I wrote back in 2017 so you're not going to be dragging anything off-track that wasn't already slated to happen.
A/N 2: I know I haven't included Medic's accent, it always felt a bit on the nose to write all the traits, but if we think it'll read better in future with the accent written in, let me know.
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"Damned machine!"
Metal clanged loudly before clattering against the cement floor as Engie swore again, readjusting his goggles.
"I thought rusting was supposed to make metal weaker," Sniper remarked, leaning against the wall beside the respawn machine. Engie grunted, frustration overtaking his usual calm, soft-spoken manner.
"The rustin' ain't the problem," he huffed, picking up his wrench as he crossed to the metal panel that, despite all efforts, remained firmly bolted to the wall. "I threaded these holes specifically for these bolts, then sheared the heads off 'em. Nobody was ever meant to get into this part o' the machine." He sighed, kicking his toolbox open and inspecting the contents. "Problem is, I never considered we might need to get into it."
Sniper nodded, arms folded across his chest as he watched Engie mull over the situation. If he had some sort of angle grinder, maybe he could get in - but the panel was inch-thick steel, and cutting his way in just might be enough to damage some of the wiring the plate had been intended to protect.
"What are the odds somethin's mucked up, though?" Sniper asked him. "Soldier came back himself."
"No disrespect to Soldier, but he ain't exactly got two crackers to rub together," Engie remarked, "So if this thing was spittin' out damaged replicas, we mightn't know just from him alone."
Respawn was one of his father's greatest works, though the guy had disappeared before he had a chance to finish it. Engie found the schematics and notes when he was clearing things out from his Pop's old workshop, and he was the one to put it together - but some things about it were just too far beyond even his understanding.
"This thing ain't supposed to keep our memories," he told Sniper. "You can replicate molecules and atoms as much as ye like, but memories ain't somethin' of substance. Thoughts ain't somethin' of substance, and personality comes from where memories and thoughts meet. Strictly speakin', all this should be able to do is recreate us from the ground up - just empty clones."
"That's what the imprints are for, right?" Sniper shifted, looking at the punch card slots embedded into the wall. "Imprint takes a read of everything on you at the time, and adds that to your bio print. Medic was tryin' to explain it," he added when he noticed Engie looking at him. Engie nodded.
"That serum he gives us, that works with the machine," he confirmed. He had a sneaking suspicion it used Australium, but he'd only ever found enough of it to dose up their team of nine; the Administrator had insisted on keeping the rest for whatever plans she had. "So long as you got that stuff in your system and your card in a slot, dyin' don't mean a thing." He scoffed softly. "That's why the best way to test it is to have someone die and see if it spits 'em out right."
"Best isn't always the easiest," Sniper remarked, stepping back to look at the machine fully. "What if we tried to just duplicate? It's not meant to spit out perfect dupes, right? They're all meant to have that expiry thing?"
Like with all good things, it hadn't taken the mercs long to find an exploit in the machine's ability to create people from nothing. The first handful of attempts at properly cloning themselves had been ineffective - the machine would register them already living and teleport them in from the field, or would spit out stillborn abominations that had never been capable of life. Medic was the one who had the idea to "flip a switch" on the duplicates, so to speak - change a single 1 into a zero, and let the dupes just… die.
So long as their cards stayed in, they would keep respawning. The only way to tell if someone was a duplicate or not was to just clock out every version of them and wait for the last survivor. Obviously, it also meant none of them could do anything to kill themselves off, even by accident - dying without a card in the slot meant permanent death, regardless of whether they were the duplicate or the original.
"I'm not sure how that might tell us anything," Engie admitted, though Sniper had a point. If it spat out a deformed copy, then they would know something was wrong.
If it spat out someone perfectly normal - or, well, their version of normal…
"One way to find out," Sniper unslung his rifle and stood it against the wall, shooting Engie a grin. "Give us yer knife, we'll do it like it's a proper dupe."
Engie was still uncertain, but he handed over his multi-tool. Sniper sliced into the pad of his palm, smearing the blood across a fresh punch card before slipping it into a slot. Giving Engie a salute, he pulled open the door to the imprinter and stepped inside.
The scanner whirred to life after Sniper had closed the door, detecting life inside the small space. Engie had never liked the cramped and claustrophobic feeling of the closet-like imprint scanner, but it was a necessary evil if he wanted to stay alive. Or, well, keep a version of himself alive.
Strings of numbers that he would never understand ran across the screen of the terminal, DNA turned into the binary code of computers that had always seemed just too elusive for him to understand. He liked to think he was a genius, but some things just fell outside the expanse of his knowledge - he knew enough to make the teleporter work, and enough to make respawn work, but outside of that…
Scanning took around two minutes, and Sniper rejoined him as Engie double-checked the code against the reference sheet he'd pinned next to the terminal some time ago.
"It all looks normal enough," he noted, "No discrepancies. So I guess the scanner's fine."
He pulled out the small keyboard and scrolled through the lines, finding the single digit that needed to be switched - they were trying to create a perfect duplicate, right? So they needed to remove the killswitch.
"So if it works without the switch, then we know something's wrong," Sniper confirmed. Engie punched the zero, nodding as he looked at the screen again. His hand hovered above the large SPAWN button, something in him telling him this was a bad idea, fighting against him pressing that button, but… well, he'd be lying if he didn't admit there was also a part of him that wanted to see what happened.
"One evil Sniper clone, comin' right up."
He hit the spawn button and stepped back.
The lines of code disappeared from the screen, replaced by a flashing cursor. The machine whirred, and a faint… clicking sound came from somewhere deep behind it. That wasn't normal; Engie leaned closer, heart hammering in his chest - if something was wrong—
SYSTEM_INITIALIZING…
The text on the screen jolted, and a line of distortion cut across it, altering the words that appeared there.
SYSTEM_ERROR
"Shut it off!" Engie shouted as he and Sniper both lunged for the terminal. The error message continued to flash even as Engie slammed his fist down on the ABORT button, the screen glitching as the words distorted, replaced by sharp red pixels that he could barely read before the screen went blank.
The machine, however, kept whirring and clicking, a high-pitched whine sounding before it powered down - and the corridor filled with a familiar smell that made the two men freeze as they looked at each other.
Barbecue.
"Rat, or possum," Sniper confirmed with a nod. "Must've gotten into the back end."
"That can't be good," Engie sighed, looking back at the terminal. It had switched back to normal, announcing PROCESS_COMPLETE. He wondered if it had affected the clone.
The door to spawn opened and steam billowed out. Respawning, cloning, making a human was a steamy business, and even though the small space had appropriate ventilation, opening the door always resulted in a billowing burst of the vapour. Engie grabbed his rag, wiping his goggles clear as he and Sniper stepped back.
"Well, aren't you a handsome bugger?"
The voice was the same, the accent identical and the joking lilt perfectly matched. Looking him up and down, Engie couldn't see any different between the real Sniper and the duplicate.
"How're you feelin'?" Sniper asked his clone. The guy shrugged, looking down at himself.
"Same as when we imprinted," he admitted. "But I'll bet Doc should be able to tell us if it worked, right?"
Medic's lab wasn't entirely up to code yet, but he had the tools for a few basic assessments. As he drew a blood sample however, the clone watched the needle with a detached curiosity that Engie wasn't sure he liked the look of.
Sniper must have noticed too, because he tilted his head as Medic took a second vial of blood. "What's up, Roo?"
"Doesn't hurt," the clone replied, looking up. Engie's eyes narrowed. "Like, I'm seein' the needle go in, I'm expecting the prick, but it's just… pressure. No pain."
Medic looked up as well, tilting his head. "Really? Not even a scratch?"
The clone shook his head. "Nothin'."
Medic hummed as he withdrew the needle, brow furrowed. The vials were left in a tray as he picked up one of the many scalpels that littered the lab. "Your hand, please?"
The clone extended his hand and in a swift motion, Medic sliced across the man's palm.
The clone didn't even wince.
"Felt like drawing on me with pen," he noted, looking at the blood now welling in his palm. Medic studied his face carefully, before setting the scalpel aside and reaching for the Medigun.
"Interesting," Medic turned the gun's healing beam on the man, and the bloodied wound on his palm began to knit itself back together. "I would need to run more tests to be certain, but you may be lacking pain receptors."
"That's bad, right?" the clone looked to Engie, "With what we were talking about?"
Engie was rubbing his forehead under the helmet, grimacing. "Well, it ain't good. But you shouldn't've been possible in the first place."
"Do you think it would replicate the fault with another clone?" Medic asked, returning to his other tests. Engie shrugged.
"I don't know, and I don't want to take any chances. We know now somethin's wrong; I'll make sure everyone knows not to go through respawn for a bit until I get it fixed."
"Yeah, good luck, mate," Sniper stated. "Soldier's already come through once."
Engie hummed in resignation as he considered their options. If he had the original blueprints for the machine, he might be able to sort it out - but they were over in the Gorge, and with no working vehicles, he was hard-put to find a way out there that wouldn't take a day round trip.
But if he took down respawn… well, any number of stupid mistakes could see them kick the bucket. Death had become something impernanent for the mercenaries, because they'd developed something of a reliance on respawn - they were more reckless, more careless than they should be about… well, about most things. There was a high chance that, even if he put in place all the usual safety measures and failsafes, someone would still do something stupid enough to end their life.
Not to mention, with Medic's lab still offline, there wasn't really a reliable way to prevent anybody from dying. But maybe if he got the MediBeam up and running again, got Medic's gear going, then he wouldn't feel as cautious about taking respawn offline. Engie nodded to himself - that seemed like the most sensible option.
"I'll rig up an alarm around respawn to make sure nobody goes near it," he told the trio of mercenaries in front of him. "For the time bein', it'll stay online. Once we get this place up and runnin' again," he gestured around himself, "Then I'll take respawn offline and patch it. Until then, nobody's allowed to die."
----------
"Okay, so Google isn't the Internet,"
"Finally," Antonia groaned dramatically, throwing her hands up. Miss Pauling was trying, but this was definitely a lot of information to wrap her head around and she'd only been at this for a little over an hour.
Still, she could understand the girl's annoyance. She'd had to teach the mercenaries a few things over the years, and their skulls were thicker than a vault door.
"What about this… Fire-Fox?" she asked, looking at the laptop computer in front of her. "Is this the internet, or—"
"It's a browser," Amber replied, glancing up from her phone. It was hard to believe the slim piece of metal and… and whatever else in front of her was a whole computer, much less that this device could connect remotely to every other device in the world, but…
Well, Miss Pauling had seen stranger things.
"It's like a window through which you can see the internet," Amber continued. "You type in your search query here," she pointed to a text box on the screen, "or if you know the website's address directly, you can type that in. The browser will then find it for you."
"So it's like a phone book?"
"Sort of," Amber was far more patient about it than Antonia, Miss Pauling noted - the irony didn't escape her on that. Amber had reportedly been nothing but a nuisance to the mercs through the night, while Antonia had been well-behaved and quiet. Seeing them switch roles now was… well, she guessed that Amber acting out had been because of the situation. She had already decided not to hold the teenager's attitude against her.
She looked at the small rectangular device she had been given, studying the blank screen. "And phones nowadays are miniature computers?"
"Basically," Antonia nodded, tucking hers away. She had been the one to select the device at the electronics store, promising Miss Pauling that it wasn't too complex but would do everything a phone needed to do. She'd also selected the laptop and "hotspot" that would allow Miss Pauling to connect to the internet from almost anywhere that had satellite connectivity.
Apparently, Greene was footing the bill.
Miss Pauling still wasn't sure how she felt about that.
"Phones can do almost everything a small computer can do, but they might be a bit slow or worse in quality for some things," Antonia explained, as Amber took out her own phone, checking something. She smirked slightly before tucking the device away.
"But you're always better off having a computer just in case you do need to use desktop for something," she added, closing the… browser window. "And there's some things that you can do with a computer that you couldn't do on a phone."
"Just like there's some things phones can do that computers can't," Antonia cut in. "Phones now act as, like, a messaging device, access social media, replace normal cameras, and still do phonecalls but they also do video calls. Wait, you know what a video call is, right?"
"I probably shouldn't, but we did have video calling capabilities within the company," Miss Pauling told her. It was one of the many technologies TF Industries had been at the forefront of - communications had been their cover, and their excuse for placing teams all over the world. Their interests had extended far beyond the Gravel Wars by the time Redmond and Blutarch Mann had died.
And now it was gone. TF Industries had collapsed, dissolved into Mann Co which had been taken over by Olivia Mann. Saxton Hale was gone, believed dead in 1974, and the world had simply… kept turning.
She had a feeling that if she tried to track down the Administrator, she might only find dust.
Seven years of her life had been given to a company, a plan, a vision that she had only vaguely known the fringes of. She was hired fresh out of high school, groomed for the role of assistant, handed her own team of mercenaries to manage across the two shell companies of RED and BLU, and had endured vague threats, romantic and sexual advances, even genuine danger to her life, all for… nothing.
"Basically everything's a computer, these days," Amber stated, "But everything also has that firewall, which stops you seeing everybody's personal information,"
"But what if I did want to see everybody's personal information?"
"You'd need a really good hacker," Amber replied, "And a good lawyer, in case you get caught."
"You can google people, sometimes it'll show their MyFace profile - social media," Antonia added, seeing Miss Pauling's blank look. "Or they might be listed in census data, that's all public information after a certain point. Births, deaths, and marriages registries also digitise all their information now, too, so you can look up ancestry records if you want."
"Don't forget newspapers."
"Yeah, and most newspapers have websites now, too," Antonia tugged the laptop over to her, fingers hovering above the keys. "Who were you thinking of looking up?"
"Sergeant-Barrister Jane Doe,"
It wasn't the most imperative person to look up, but it was the first one that came to mind. Antonia nodded, keys clicking softly as her fingers flew over them, evoking memories of typing classes Miss Pauling had been forced to sit through during high school.
Except, back then they'd had to use a typewriter.
The page that appeared was… alarming. Antonia passed the laptop back and Miss Pauling scrolled through the page, a sinking sensation in her chest as she recognised headlines, legal transcripts, even images of Soldier out in the community.
"Wait, isn't that one of the guys from your team?" Amber stared at one of the pictures. Miss Pauling had tried so hard, done everything right in trying to keep all evidence of the mercenaries and their activities off the grid, and yet… she'd failed.
Once again, it had all been for nothing.
TF Industries was gone. Helen was probably gone. Saxton was gone. Everything Florence Pauling had spent the last seven years of her life trying to achieve was just… ashes in the dust.
Focus, Pauling.
"How do we remove this?" she asked, looking first at Amber then Antonia. "Any information about my team, it needs to be buried - how do I do that?"
"You can't," Amber shrugged, "Once it's on the Internet, it's there for all of eternity."
"Or until the Internet dies," Antonia agreed, "I mean... you could probably get a hacker to scrub the information, but the good ones are all really expensive and probably not people you should be in contact with."
Hacker. It was the fourth time either of the girls had mentioned such an entity, and Miss Pauling was already making a mental note to seek one out. In a world where everything was digital, a person who could hop between the lines of code to access, manipulate, or hide information held all the power - and she needed someone like that on her team.
But why? What was it for, all of this? Everything Miss Pauling knew, everything she'd worked for - it was gone. She didn't need to keep looking after the mercs, she didn't need to keep worrying about jobs and contracts and managing information. It was habit, mostly, that was keeping her going, but what was she working towards?
She'd figure that out later.
Sighing heavily, she resigned herself to her education once more. "So how does one stay off the radar nowadays?"
"You don't," Antonia shrugged. "Not unless you go full isolationist. The government, big corporations, all of them have some big surveillance operation. Even most phones are quietly tracking information - not that one," she added, nodding to the one Miss Pauling had laid in front of her. "That's a 4-NON phone, they're about the only tech-related group that has any respect for privacy anymore."
"You want to stay off the grid, you have to basically create your own grid. No other way to avoid it," Amber tilted her head as she looked at the laptop. "But if you want to talk about digital safety beyond, like, common knowledge, you should probably talk to Oscar. He's, like, the guy that handles everyone's tech in town."
"The glittery guy?"
Both girls laughed. "Oscar" was the owner of the tech store and at first Miss Pauling had thought him to be another customer until he greeted them. The guy was very clearly a… well, a friend of Dorothy, and he made no effort to hide that fact. Likable, friendly, and even a little flirty - she had been quickly reassured that he "batted for the other team", so none of the apparent advances had made her feel uncomfortable. Miss Pauling just wasn't used to seeing someone so, well, loud about that sort of thing.
Apparently it was very normalised for people to be, well, like that nowadays. There was at least one person on her team who might appreciate that information.
The girls departed not long after, leaving Miss Pauling to figure out her way around the internet and warning her not to look up a thing called "Rule 34" - at least, not in a public space.
Amber had put some numbers into her phone already, including her own and Antonia's, and Miss Pauling figured out how to scroll the "Contacts" application as she started to pack up the laptop. She still wasn't sure what had happened to Scout, and with no way to contact him or anybody else from his family, she wasn't exactly able to ask. Nor was she able to leave - Sheriff Greene's generosity had stopped short of lending her a vehicle, and she wasn't sure she wanted to go anywhere without Scout, anyway.
The sun was inching closer to the jagged horizon as Miss Pauling crossed into the park, noting the children playing on the playground and the people milling about. It seemed… idyllic. No madness fuelled by lead poisoning, no bouts of insanity, no violence lingering like a threat just beyond the periphery… Miss Pauling found a spot to sit and watched the water fountain as it cycled through a handful of different waterspout patterns.
Everything she knew was… gone. Her company, her boss, her job, her family, her life - it was all but a memory now, drifting in the breeze just as she drifted. Miss Pauling had built her entire identity around her job, and now it was…
She closed her eyes, exhaling slowly. A light breeze toyed with the loose strands of her hair, and leaves skittered across the pathway before her. Far too relatable for her liking.
"Miss Pauling!"
She was on her feet before she even registered the movement, recognising the figure all but bounding over to her. For once, she was relieved to see that big, stupid grin, and let Scout sweep her up into a tight hug.
"I was worried when they told me you was already gone," he admitted, pulling back and glancing her over, "I mean, ya didn't look too great and I thought they was gonna try and keep us separated and—"
"Jer, time and place,"
A middle-aged man had sidled up behind Scout, hands tucked in his pockets as he inclined his head at Miss Pauling. Scout made a small "oh, right" as he turned, allowing the stranger to join them.
"You must be Miss Pauling," the man grinned at her, an expression that looked far too familiar to be set in a stranger's face. "He used to talk about you for hours."
"I wasn't that bad," Scout muttered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Uh, yeah, Miss Pauling - this is my brother, Jacob."
"Nice to finally meet some of Scout's family— Jeremy's," she corrected herself quickly, realising they probably didn't know him by his workname. Her first impression of Jacob was that he was much younger than she expected - he was supposed to be around eighty, but the man before her didn't look a day over fifty. "I wish I could say he's spoken about you, but…"
"Naw, it's alright," Jacob shook her hand, still smiling as he glanced at Scout. "He hardly knows how to talk about anythin' other than himself."
"Hey, I talk about baseball,"
"And me, apparently," Miss Pauling couldn't hold back the slight grin.
"Well, I talk about stuff I like," Scout shrugged, looking back to Jacob. "We was just talkin' about seein' my other brothers - you should come with us!"
She caught the slight shift in Jacob's posture, the instantly guarded look in his eyes though he didn't look away from Scout - microexpressions, sure, but microexpressions that told her something she had hoped not to know. A glance at Scout told her that, as always, Scout was oblivious to anything that wasn't immediately clear on the surface - his brother was lying to him, and Scout didn't even realise it.
"I'm sure Miss Pauling has other things she needs to handle," Jacob told Scout, though his gaze turned to her. "Right?"
"Actually, my afternoon's just become free," she forced a tight smile at Jacob, though the glare she fixed him with would hopefully convey that she knew what he was doing. "I'd love to come and meet your family, Sc— Jeremy. Besides," the smile dialled up to eleven. "It's probably best we stick together."
"Yeah! Safety in numbers," Scout grinned at her as he slipped his hand into hers, turning to Jacob. "Come on, let's not keep 'em waitin'!"
I love seeing people's takes on the Respawn mechanic in TF2, either what does the respawn itself look like or what happens to the bodies, I wanna see more ngl.
