Lexo fumbled with his keys for a bit, struggling to find the right one. His awkward panic increased with each incorrect guess. Not even he knew why he had so many unnecessary keys.
"Ah- just one second..."
After three more guesses, he found the right one and the door was unlocked.
"There!"
"That's… a lotta keys. You work security or something?"
"I uh... I collect them."
He swung open the door, and it got stopped mid-way through the motion.
"Oh, one sec."
He slipped in behind the door, and moved a small pile of clothes that was obstructing the threshold. The door opened fully into his dorm, and revealed his somewhat hopeless living situation.
"... So, uhm... Here we are." He uncomfortably chuckled.
She stepped into the room after him.
"Alrighty… So where's this Ethernet?"
Straight to the point, she didn't seem at all perturbed by the messy living situation. She'd seen worse.
"Well, if you'd follow me..."
Lex navigated through heaps of laundry and microwaveable meal trash until he reached the television stand. He shifted the stand away from the wall, and a messy amalgamation of wires was revealed.
"It's somewhere in there."
Crouching down slightly, he pulled away at some of the unnecessary wires, looking for only the ones plugged into his game system.
"Ah. I see it in there."
Gemini threw her bag on a chair and slid under the heap of wires like a mechanic sliding under a car. She fiddled with some things while she made small talk.
"What was your name? I don't think I caught it."
"My name..? Oh, my name, right."
He watched her do her thing for a while, until he felt like he was being creepy, so he found something else to do.
"People call me Lexo. What about you?"
He started to pick up some clothes and toss them into laundry hampers. Doing his best to try to tidy up while she was here so she didn't have to work in such an environment.
"I'm Gemini. Picked it out myself."
He glanced up at her.
"Gemini? That's a pretty awesome name. It suits you."
Immediately, he regretted the comment. Feeling as though it was pretty lame, and only added to the awkward tension.
"Thought it made sense. I do kinda look like I ate my twin so why not just embrace it."
"Oh, oh goodness..."
Gemini found out that both the connection to the wall port, and to the system were just fine, and the cable was a 6A in perfectly fine condition that was provided to him by the college. That wasn't the problem either... This meant that the issue had to lie within the software of the game system itself.
"Y'know, when a twin is like absorbed in the womb? I didn't actually eat anyone."
She popped back out from the mess of wires.
"That doesn't look to be the issue. Mind if I boot up the system and see if any programs are hogging bandwidth?"
He finished tossing laundry in bins, and he dusted off his hands.
"Sure, go for it."
He pointed towards the controller sitting on his mattress.
She stood up to dust herself off. Her hoodie and the shirt underneath had ridden up her stomach, and before she could readjust them, Lexo could see the edge of a tattoo about a palm's distance from the top of her left hip.
Unaware, Lex's eyes sort of locked on her for a while. His gaze remained as she stood up. He turned, embarrassed, when he realized her shirt was practically up to her bra. Waiting for her to fix her clothes, or for gravity to fix them for her.
"..."
However, along with seeing her slender midriff, he saw the strange tattoo. From what he gathered, it was the exact same logo as Brett Syphon's tech company. To be fair, the logo is everywhere. He's responsible for revolutionary power storage and defense systems. His monopoly owned and produced just about every technology related product available for public consumption. Though, finding it here...branded onto someone's body? Something about it felt off, and, for some reason, Lex felt extremely bothered by it.
"That's an... Interesting tattoo you got there."
"Ah shit… you saw that? It's kinda a long story."
She booted up his gaming system.
"Ah, I see. So like, drunk dare or something?"
He helps her out by switching the tv to the right input.
"... That Syphon guy is a lot more trouble than he presents himself as." He instinctively looks over his shoulder, at the doorway as he says that.
"I guess you could say I was intoxicated at the time…"
She messed with a few settings on the console, trying to see if any large programs were running unnecessarily. Rather quickly, she figured out that his network drivers were concerningly out of date. In fact, it seemed as if the last time they had an update was when he first bought the console.
"Did you happen to disable automatic updates on this when you got it?"
"... Uhm, I think so? I remember seeing this video that said keeping that enabled could let some malware in or something."
"Technically, it is possible, but ultimately the newest updates address vulnerabilities and close potential holes in security to reduce the overall risk of a malware attack."
She sets the newest updates to download and install.
"Your network drivers were wayyy out of date, so the console's OS couldn't even communicate with the Ethernet. It's like your system was speaking Old Germanic English and the network was speaking Modern English slang."
"Wow... I guess that kinda makes sense. Sorry for bringing you here for such a silly issue."
He rubs the back of his neck as he looms over her, watching the update begin to install.
"It's not silly at all. You were working with the information you had. I'll just wait for it to finish installing to make sure there isn't anything else going on… sooo you have some tea on Dr. Syphon?"
"Tea? Like, what type of tea?"
He leaned forward, confused.
"... My favorite is green tea..."
"Tea, like gossip, but green tea is a good one. I like white tea."
"Oh, gossip?"
He paused for a while, but then looked like he was getting worked up to say something. However, he stopped right before it would've come out of his mouth.
"Actually, I should keep all that to myself... All I can say is that he's definitely not who he appears to be..."
She looked at him in his eyes, suddenly very serious.
"Lexo, I know."
"... You... Know?"
He rubs his arms, seemingly in discomfort, as he subconsciously locks eyes with where he saw that tattoo on her body. His mind is blitzed with questions, doubts, wonders, and most importantly... All the memories of what happened to him.
She knows? What does she know? How much of it does she know...?
How long has he gone on suffering...
As the only one?