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Vlad didn’t usually get drunk. The experience of getting drunk was pleasant enough, but the aftermath was never worth it. Drunk Vlad made bad decisions. Sober Vlad tried to keep things from getting in the tabloids, usually by drinking only in the Infinite Realms where using his powers was expected and where the majority of reporters didn’t have access (there were, unfortunately, a couple ghost journalists who had come into being after he became a billionaire, but they were more annoying than anything). Unfortunately, drinking in the Realms also meant that Drunk Vlad’s bad decisions were encouraged to higher and more embarrassing heights by one Ember McLain.
The most recent drinking binge had been rather spur of the moment. His life had been rather quiet for the past couple weeks. Maybe he’d been a bit morose at the time and maybe the offer of a drink and a shoulder to metaphorically (literally) cry on had been a bit too tempting to turn down. Of course, Drunk Vlad had gotten an idea and Ember, the enabler she was, had encouraged him and now here he was, stumbling into his lab looking for the books he had gotten on a whim during his last excursion to the library in Academics’ Row.
It was a stupid idea. He knew it was a stupid idea, but that didn’t stop him from pulling the books from where he’d stored them and flipping to the relevant passage. Technomancy wasn’t alien to him, he’d used it several times for various different projects over the years, but he’d never really bothered to dabble in the Artificial Intelligence side of things before. It hadn’t felt worth the time to train and his current computer system more than enough for his needs. That was Sober Vlad though.
Drunk Vlad had an idea— an amazing idea. Ember had even agreed!
He hadn’t seen Jack or Maddie in years and years. What would it matter to them if he made AI powered holograms of them? It wasn’t like either of them would ever come by to see the holograms— they hadn’t even bothered to visit him on his deathbed after all. The quacks from the hospital would probably throw around words like codependent or maladaptive or some other meaningless buzzword if they caught wind of his plan, but none of them were in his lab at the moment so Drunk Vlad felt completely justified in ignoring the words they weren’t throwing around in favor of pulling out the notes Sober Vlad had taken a couple days ago.
The words were swirling on the page, but he managed to make out enough of it to stumble out of his seat and start gathering what he needed. Despite the way his tools seemed to be trying to hide from him and almost dropping several large chunks of metal on his foot, Vlad managed to gather everything he needed at his workbench and get to work. Creating the physical components of his soon to be companions was the easy part— at least it would have been if the pieces actually let him mould them into the right shapes instead of slipping and sliding out of his hands onto the floor. It was a good thing he had plenty of backup materials. Then came etching the symbols and glyphs necessary according to the books and his notes. The shapes seemed to warp and move even as he was etching them and he was forced to start over at least twice after accidentally crossing straight through some key glyphs.
Finally, he managed to smash carefully connect all the parts into two, faintly buzzing metal ’pressudcores’— at least that’s what he thought the books were calling them. The word was kind of hard to decipher with the words still blurring into each other. It didn’t really matter though, because now that the physical parts were done, he could start working on the actual AIs themselves. He was practically bouncing with excitement as he took the pressudcores over to the main terminal for his computer system and connected them to it.
The base coding took longer than he would have liked to write out, even with the glyphs kicking in after a while and assisting the process by forming some of the more eldritch pieces of code required to form true intelligence from nothing more than data, metal, and magic. In fact, it took so long he could feel the alcohol wearing off and the edge of shame starting to inch over the horizon. That wouldn’t do—he wasn’t anywhere near done yet! No, something would need to be done before Sober Vlad could begin to intrude and think something blasphemous like, ‘maybe I shouldn’t do this.’
In fact, his wine cellar was just a hallway and staircase away from his lab! It took less than a minute for Vlad to zip over and pick a couple nice looking bottles before returning to his chair. Popping open one of the bottles at random, Vlad started downing wine straight from the bottle until Sober Vlad was well and truly buried once more. Just in time too— the code glyphs had continued their work as he’d been busy and the code was finally ready for him to input the ‘personality functions’.
This was the part he’d been most excited for. He poured everything he could remember into the codes. Jack’s boisterous personality and love for physical affection, Maddie’s boundless curiosity and love of both physical and verbal conflict, their mutual love for horror movies, their confidence and shamelessness— everything he could drag up from the depths of his memories from Jack’s weird hatred of rubber ducks to Maddie’s habit of sorting her snacks alphabetically. For once, the memories didn’t burn or chew at his insides like shattered glass. It was freeing, in a way, to create something from the ashes of the most important relationships he’d ever had.
Once he ran out of memories to draw from it was back to the final bit of technical coding— the functions and abilities he wanted to give to them. They would be connected to the computer and servers, of course, but there were all kinds of other, extra abilities he could give them with the addition of ectoplasm and further runes. The top of the list was, of course, the ability to interact with physical matter— as sort of anti-intangibility as it were—, but there was also the option to give them some more defensive capabilities as well. He didn’t often get uninvited visitors, but additional defenses were always useful in a pinch (and if it gave them a sort of false-ectosignature, well that was neither here nor there).
Thankfully, he just so happened to have some spare elemental ectoplasm hanging around in his lab from some previous experiments. It didn’t take long to sift through the various bottles to find what he was looking for. He gave the Jack AI fire as a nod to the actual man’s furnace-like temperature and so he could be the primary ‘defender’ while the Maddie AI was given electrical so she could better integrate with the electronics in his lab and assist him with his experiments. Carefully funneling the ectoplasm where it needed to go was a bit more difficult than it should have been, leaving him and the pressudcores spattered with spots of heat and sparking with static, but ultimately successful as each glowed with an inner energy.
Finally, with everything else set up and ready to go, he just had to create— or rather, upload— the AIs’ forms. His photo albums were full of photos; none of them were recent, of course, but, considering that he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the current Maddie or Jack… well, it was probably better to remake the friends he had known rather than the distant figures that had replaced them. Alternating between swigging wine and scanning pictures into the system, the process seemed to go by in a flash despite what were probably hundreds of photos of him and his friends in various poses and activities. The promise of seeing them, or at least their likenesses, kept him from lingering over the photos and dwelling on the memories depicted while the wine quickly ate away at his sense of time.
Finally, all the pictures had gone through the scanner. He made sure Maddie‘s and Jack’s images were separated and pushed to the right AI before, finally, initiating the program. He watched with, at first, jittery fingers and single minded intent as the code slowly compiled. As time stretched on, however, Vlad soon found himself yawning as his body seemed to realize that he’d been awake working on the project much too long. He slowly sank further into his chair, arms propped up on the desk to cushion his head as he continued to watch numbers blur in and out of focus as they ticked by. He continued sipping on the wine, slower than earlier, but eventually it was gone leaving him to just stare at the computer screen and fiddle with the tools scattered across his desk. Then, a screen popped up.
One of the AIs was ready.
Sitting up as quickly as he could and ignoring the way his head swam from the sudden movement, Vlad pressed start. He waited with baited breath as the red-orange glowing pressudcore lit up just a little brighter. A light shot out of the opening and the hologram formed in the middle of his lab. Vlad stared wide eyed at the Jack now standing in the middle of his lab. He looked just like Vlad remembered, from the slightly too long mullet to the bright orange jumpsuit. He froze, just staring at the blank eyed AI hologram, willing him to react. Then, the hologram blinked, looked at him, and smiled the same way the real Jack always had.
Vlad stood from his seat to try and get a better look at him only to stumble forward on awkward, unsteady feet as his head swam from the sudden change in altitude. The hologram reacted immediately, stepping forward and steadying him with warm, careful hands. It didn’t feel human, the texture closer to that of a ghost which was further reinforced by the soft pulse of ectoplasm just below the surface, but it was almost more fitting that way since he had been made from the memories haunting Vlad for years. And now he was here and real. Vlad started blinking, his eyes burning suddenly.
He shifted away, or at least tried to. The room was still spinning around him and he stumbled again, almost falling to the floor. The hologram jolted forward, grabbing Vlad before he could hit the floor and pulling him into the hologram’s side. Vlad froze at the sudden embrace, breathing as evenly as he could while drunk when his breathing threatened to hitch and the burning in his eyes got stronger. “Come on Master—“ The AI’s voice wasn’t quite right, but considering he hadn’t upload any audio for the AI to pull from, it was surprisingly close.
“V-man,” Vlad corrected, words slurred and heavy on his tongue, “you— Jack always called me V-man. Or Vladdie.”
“Whoops! Sorry V-man,” the AI corrected himself, still grinning as he rubbed at the back of his neck with his open hand. It was so familiar, so real that Vlad couldn’t stop himself from slumping further into not-Jack’s side. “Are you okay V-man?”
Vlad’s grip on not-Jack tightened as he buried his face into not-Jack’s neck. “I missed you,” he ‘whispered’ with all the volume control of a drunk on the edge of blacking out. Jack didn’t comment on it though. Instead he just adjusted how he was holding Vlad so he could run a hand up and down Vlad’s back.
“I missed you too,” Jack echoed back. The dam broke.
Vlad’s shoulders shook with the force of his sobs as he wrapped his arms around Jack as well. “I missed you. I needed you. Where did you go? Why did you leave me?” Jack didn’t answer, but Vlad hadn’t been looking for one anyway. This Jack wouldn’t have known about the Protoportal. This Jack hadn’t been the one to abandon him— wouldn’t get the chance if Vlad had any say in it. Vlad’s nails shifted to claws and dug into the back of Jack’s jumpsuit with all the strength he could muster, as if he could rewind everything that had happened if he just held on hard enough. If it bothered Jack, he gave no indication and just continued to run his hand up and down Vlad’s back.
Eventually, the tears ran out and Vlad’s strength faltered leaving him leaning limply against Jack’s chest. His red, puffy eyes stayed closed as Jack’s ministrations slowed to a stop. He couldn’t help but tense, waiting for Jack to throw him away once more, but instead he asked, “hey V-man, do you have a bed around here somewhere? You should rest.” Despite himself, Vlad pulled back and peeled his eyes open to glance around the lab. He had a cot in there specifically for pulling all nighters— there! Jack looked over to where Vlad was pointing, nodded, and then swept Vlad up into a bridal carry. Vlad yelped at the sudden change in elevation before relaxing into the familiar, comforting hold almost against his will. Within moments, he had fallen asleep.
With morning late afternoon came the reappearance of Sober Vlad and a hangover powerful enough that Vlad was pretty sure would have killed him if he wasn’t already partially dead. Groaning he slowly cracked his eyes open to glare at the lab around him— the constant whirring and buzzing of machinery only adding to the pounding in his head.
The place was a mess. Tools and metal and broken chip boards were scattered across the room while wine bottles littered the floor around his favorite workstation. Groaning and lifting himself up to get a better view of the tabletop, Vlad wracked his brain trying to remember what, exactly, he had gotten into the night-day-whenever before. Then, he caught sight of the pair of glowing spheres still hooked up to his computer.
He only had a moment of confusion before Jack, in all of his orange jumpsuited glory, appeared in the middle of the lab with a booming, “Vladdie!” Clutching his head as the memories slowly started trickling back in, Vlad promised himself something.
He was Never. Drinking. Again.