I took one of Balamb's horses, promising to take very good care of him, and set off towards Genesis.

I had one intention: fixing Nooch.

I realized it would be near impossible, but the night before I'd had a thought, or rather, several thoughts, regarding the subject and I couldn't leave them without acting upon them.

The first thought was that I would just remove the part of him that sent signals to the government anyway, without regard for the consequences. Even if he couldn't see, I could still interact with him, right? But he couldn't hear, either...

That plan was quickly added upon by another idea. What if I found a way he could communicate with me without being able to see, hear, or even talk? Like, what if I hooked him up to a computer screen, or a TV, or something? He could communicate with me through text and vice-versa.

All I needed was a computer screen. Specifically, a functional one.

It was possible that the boss, Lachlan, had one, but there was no way in hell he was going to let me use it. Because even if I could get Nooch working to the point that he could communicate, by Lachlan's standards, he'd still be useless. He wouldn't be able to fight or even walk around, really. He'd be able to talk using emoticons though, which would be pretty funny.

I imagined him trying to flirt with me again and using millions of winky faces.

i would totally kiss you if i could see you ;);););)

I laughed out loud. The horse made a noise similar to a laugh and I laughed harder.

~~~

I got back to Genesis, put the horse in the stable, and sprinted to HQ. I burst through the door and saw Rob and Preston, who appeared to have been previously cuddling on the couch, staring at me.

"HI," I said loudly, "WHERE'S THE BOSS?"

"Not here," Preston said simply. "He's been gone for a while now. Why? Where's Choco? What took you so long?"

"Does he have a computer?"

"I think so, yeah," Preston replied. "What do you need a..."

"WHERE IS IT AND WOULD HE BE MAD IF I BORROWED IT?"

"In his office and YES," Preston said. "What the hell do you need a computer for??"

"Uh, nothing," I said quickly. "Where's his office?"

"The door in the back of the kitchen...HANG ON THAT'S NOT AN INVITATION FOR YOU TO..."

I was already gone. I ran to the kitchen, and through the door in the back, to Lachlan's office. It was darkened, with two windows on the far wall. Both windows were covered by thick curtains. A desk and a bed were the only two pieces of furniture. On the desk was a desktop computer, completely shut off. And on the bed was a laptop, shut, its cord tossed carelessly on the floor and a pair of headphones set carefully on the bed's lone pillow.

This wasn't an office, it was a living space, albeit a sad one. I guess I knew where Lachlan spent most of his time, now.

I grabbed the laptop and its cord as they would be the easiest to transport and then headed to the basement, attempting to not alert Preston or Rob. I assumed they had gone back to cuddling.

He was right where we had left him; leaning against a pile of boxes, his head hanging like he was crying. I took a deep breath and walked towards him.

He's not dead, I had to tell myself. He's just deactivated. Like when you shut down a computer for the night. He's fine.

I set the laptop down on the floor. Nooch had a panel on the back of his head that could be opened with a screwdriver, which was a tool I did not have. There were boxes everywhere, though. There had to be one somewhere.

I began to look through the boxes. I managed to find a lot of interesting things, like old weapons, piles of books, DVDs, pillows, blankets, and an entire box filled with nothing but glass jars, but no screwdrivers until the very last box in the room.

It was the wrong size (too small), but I had to work with it anyway. I began unscrewing the panel...

"...What are you doing?" It was Preston.

I didn't turn to face him. I began unscrewing the second screw. I heard him step closer to me.

"Stop it. What if you..." He paused. I began unscrewing the third screw.

"...what if you accidentally break him? What then?"

I stopped. One more screw to go, but I stopped.

"I won't," I said, unmoving. "I have redstone powers. He'll be fine."

Preston sighed. "But you've barely ever used your powers, how can you be so confident in them?"

I ignored him and began unscrewing the last screw.

"Well, I'm not going to stop you, but...be careful, alright?"

I heard him walk back up the stairs. I was finished with the last screw.

Becoming frustrated, I ripped off the panel and tossed it carelessly across the room. Inside his head were a bunch of colored wires and other bits of hardware. I could feel them, I could feel what each one did and how it would react to power and it was a little overwhelming at first.

I lacked tools to do this safely with, but after I had sorted through my feelings and figured out which part was controlled by the government, I stuck my hand in and ripped it out. Nooch's whole body jerked like he had felt it, but it was just from the wires being pulled at.

I looked at the piece of hardware in my hand. It was nothing but a square, metal box, with broken wires dangling from outputs and screws located on the top.

I closed my fist and crushed it.

Next, I wired him up to the laptop and turned it on. I opened up a notepad program, as any program more complicated than that might fuck with him because he'd try and read all the coding and just get confused.

I sat cross-legged on the the floor, with the computer on my lap, and carefully placed my hand on top of his. I waited a moment for him to activate.

He lifted his head, but his eyes didn't glow.

Can you hear me? I typed into the computer. Nooch turned his head left, and then right, and then squeezed my hand. It took him a moment to reply.

01110000 01100101 01110100 01100101 01111001 00101100 00100000 01101001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101001 01110100 00101110 00101110 00101110

wait you cant read that can you

i can hear you yeah

I smiled, big. And then I started laughing. IT HAD WORKED! I couldn't read binary code but I assumed he had just typed gibberish anyway, because he was still getting used to the program. I squeezed his hand, and realizing he couldn't hear my joy, went back to the computer.

You wouldn't believe how happy I am right now. I can't believe that worked!

petey im so confused whats going on i cant see anything im scared

I felt bad. Maybe I should've found a way to warn him first. I typed up a quick explanation of what I had just done to him.

what.

That was his only response. I typed something else.

Isn't this great? We can talk again! :D

no no this is not great

you dont understand do you

you dont understand what youve done

I typed some question marks.

those symbols just look like lines of code to me so im gonna assume theyre question marks or something equally exclamatory

anyway

everythings just so dark

its not fun i dont like it id rather go back to being shut down

I frowned. I also typed out a frowny face, even though he probably wouldn't be able to read the symbols. I put "That's a frowny face btw" next to it to clarify.

But don't you want to talk to me? I asked.

well yeah

just

not like this

im really sorry please dont be mad at me i know you thought you were doing something good

I let go of his hand. I didn't type anything. I wasn't mad at him, I was just disappointed. I really wanted to talk to him, just sit there and type with him for a while...

youre mad at me arent you

im so sorry

01101101 01100001 01111001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01100111 01100001 01101001 01101110 

He didn't type anything else. His head dipped back down. He'd shut himself off.

~~~

Whoops. You might want to translate that binary code.

Happy new years!

Ciao!

EDIT: First of all the second code was wrong so i fixed it

Second of all, I'm gonna put it in the comments so you can actually copy and paste it :P